Category: Marvel Horror

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Son of Satan Classic


By Gary Friedrich, Steve Gerber, Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, John Warner, Bill Mantlo, Mike Friedrich, Herb Trimpe, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Sonny Trinidad, P Craig Russell, Ed Hannigan, Russ Heath, Jim Starlin & various (Marvel)
ISBN:  978-3029-0104-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

As the 1960s closed, American comics were in turmoil, reflecting the greater society they were being published in – the one full of reactionary establishment types, turbulent rebellious youth, black people and their multi-ethnic supporters all agitating for universal Civil Rights and impressionable kids looking for entertainment and getting an education along the way.

In that cauldron – one fully addressed and depicted in comics books as much as laws and the Comics Code would allow – dissatisfaction and the need for change permeated everyone’s mind and the desire for a new way gripped the national and international consciousness.

Superheroes had dominated for most of the decade: peaking globally with a rush of outrageously daft, “Camp” humour excess before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Business never sleeps, however, and in their place, TV, movies and comics returned to familiar old genres like westerns, war, science fiction and especially horror stories: although these too benefitted from and were changed by expanded consciousness and enlightened social attitudes.

For Marvel, the problem must have been particularly acute: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby had rebuilt an ailing minor publisher into a close contender for the top spot, on the backs of gaudily attired mystery men, but now that the bubble seemed to have both deflated and burst… for a second time.

Since other genres were now piquing the still-presumed mostly adolescent interests of comics core readership – like the alternative “cool” vibe attached to the modern notion of disenchanted, unchained youth (and generally ones riding motorbikes) – all publishers were looking for fresh and different ways forward.

To counter the abrupt downturn in superhero sales, the Comics Code prohibition against horror stories and iconography was hastily amended to facilitate the resurrection of scary material and bolster an industry in economic freefall. With terror tales and magical situations back in a big way, a new crop of anthologies and supernatural heroes and monsters started to thrive, supplementing the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins that had been gradually infiltrating the formerly science-only scenarios of the superhero who had weathered the downturn by tackling horror themes and villains…

It should be noted that more mature scary stories had been available since the mid-60s in the monochrome publications of Jim Warren and his imitators, who had deftly sidestepped Comics Code embargos by redefining their graphic output as “magazines” not comics. Now the likes of Eerie and Creepy had some real competition…

Lifting the CCA ban sparked a mass spawning of horror titles of varying degrees of potency and excess. Whether new material or reprints from before and after the instigation of the Code, the inexorable wave of thrillers and chillers helped even more venerable costumed crusaders close their doors and – temporarily at least – bite the dust.

Almost overnight, nasty monsters became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and a parade of pre-code reprints refreshed jaded palates whilst making sound financial sense. However, the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination with supernatural themes was best catered to by adapting already-popular and well-known cultural icons (all long out of copyright) before gambling on new concepts and an untested readership.

Whereas DC quickly cornered the market in new anthology tales – in the mordantly dark vein of Poe, Lovecraft, M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, O. Henry and more – Marvel’s attempts at new, stand-alone anthological vehicles proved less successful and they soon shifted editorial efforts to their strong suite: developing ongoing characters in a shared universe. centred

The House of Ideas combined the new trend with their established style to create dark and tragic adventure heroes and even explored having unrepentant villains – like Dracula – as chief protagonist. As always in entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics must be adapted and incorporated into the continuity. Marvel was still reeling from Kirby’s defection to DC in 1970 (where he would conjure his own chilling legends with Spirit World and The Demon) and new Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas cannily greenlit a new character combining freewheeling, teen-friendly biker themes with the all-pervasive horror-furore…

Are you up for a bit more context before we really begin?

When proto-monster star Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1970) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved quickly and instituted a string of shocking super-stars. The began with a tragic wild beast and cruelly cunning predator – Werewolf by Night and The Tomb of Dracula – before chancing something truly new: a devil-haunted biker who could tap into both the motorcycling chic of movie Easy Rider and the global supernatural zeitgeist.

Preceded by god-touched western star Red Wolf and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night a new Ghost Rider premiered in Marvel Spotlight #5 (August 1972), and in turn led to the birth of the troubled subject of this Classic collection.

The graphic grimoire gathers the earliest exploits of Daimon Hellstrom as first seen in Ghost Rider #1-2, Marvel Spotlight #13-24, and Son of Satan #1-8, plus pertinent crossovers from Marvel Team-Up #32 and Marvel Two-In-One #14. Said saga spanned September 1973 to February 1977.

And will need even more background to with your continued indulgence…

Stunt-biker Johnny Blaze sold his soul to Satan to save his adopted father-figure Crash Simpson from cancer, but was cheated by the Devil. When the Lord of Lies came to collect his due, Johnny’s devoted and virginal girlfriend Roxanne Simpson interceded and partially redeemed her man. Although her purity prevented Satan’s victory, the Devil was only temporarily thwarted and took a measure of vengeance by afflicting Blaze with a body that burned with the fiery torments of Hell every time the sun set…

Initially haunting the night and terrorising thugs and criminals, the traumatised biker soon left the city for the solitary desert, perpetually battling The Deceiver’s countless agents who were tasked with shattering Roxanne’s loving aura of protection and claiming Blaze for Hell.

As part of these adventures Blaze battled a diabolical cult led by First Nations medicine man Snake Dance who sought to sacrifice Roxanne. The Ghost Rider barely saved her and – after dodging gun-happy cops – rushed her to hospital, where he was again attacked, this time by the Medicine Man’s daughter, Linda Littletrees, who revealed her own intimate connection to the Infernal…

The confrontation culminated in a devastating eldritch assault as she revealed her hidden role as satanic siren Witch-Woman…

That epic duel opens this compendium with Ghost Rider #1 (cover-dated September 1973, by Gary Friedrich, Tom Sutton & Syd Shores), further extending the escalating war between Blaze and the Devil and using the conflict to introduce a new horror-hero who would take over the biker’s vacant slot in Spotlight: one owing much to the tone of the times and the imminent release of movie blockbuster The Exorcist…

It transpires that Linda Littletrees isn’t so much a Satan-worshipping witch as ‘A Woman Possessed!’, but when her father and her fiancé Sam Silvercloud call in a Boston-based exorcist named Daimon Hellstrom, they are utterly unprepared for the kind of assistance this demonologist offers.

A Roxanne slowly recuperates, Blaze is still on the run from the police and Ghost Rider #2 sees the bedevilled biker dragged down to Hell in ‘Shake Hands With Satan!’ (illustrated by Jim Mooney & Shores) before the tale concludes in Marvel Spotlight #12 with the official debut of ‘The Son of Satan!’, courtesy of Friedrich, Herb Trimpe & Frank Chiaramonte.

Here it is revealed that religious scholar Hellstrom has a long and painfully suppressed inner self, and that the exorcist is actually a brutal scion of the Infernal Realm eternally at war with his diabolical dad.

Unleashed and liberated, the Prince of Hell swiftly rushes to Blaze’s aid – although more to spite his sire than succour the victim – and, with his own series off to a spectacular start, continues to take the pressure off the flaming-skulled hero.

We learn that the star-crossed career of the perpetually divided champion is comprised of a war between a devout demonologist and the Prince of Pandemonium: a studious, spiritual scholar sharing one body with a rebellious, sadistically violent demonic alter ego dubbed “the Darksoul”, and the Devil’s true spawn and legacy…

Friedrich, Trimpe & Chiaramonte reveal the source of the conflict in Marvel Spotlight #13’s as ‘When Satan Walked the Earth!’ takes Hellstrom back to the house he was reared in to find and read his mother’s diary.

Victoria Hellstrom’s words describe an enigmatic, beguiling stranger who swept her off her feet and subsequent early years of wedded bliss. How she bore a son and, three years after, a daughter. The toe shifts as the writer notes her husband’s increased absences, and the day she found her man and his girl-child performing a macabre blood-oath ritual sacrifice in the cellar of the idyllic family home…

When her spouse revealed himself as Satan Incarnate, the writer went quite mad.

With his mother institutionalised, his sister taken into care and their father vanished, the grieving shellshocked son entered a seminary and studied for the priesthood.

The diary ends with the writer’s death, but Daimon’s reawakened memories stir and he recalls how, on his 21st birthday his heritage came for him. Following an irresistible call, the student followed a disembodied voice through  portal to Hell and saw his father once more…

Offered all the twisted power and malign glory of a seat by the Devil’s side, Hellstrom rebelled, rejecting and battling his father and triggering a short-lived revolution in The Pit, before escaping with Satan’s all-powerful infernal Trident. The unique pitchfork is made of exotic mineral Netheranium: the only substance (other than prayer, piety, devotion and that other holy stuff) that can weaken the Devil. Best remember this is a comic book, and notionally an all-ages one at that…

Thus, after an untold age suppressing his own dark passenger, Daimon Hellstrom reaches an accommodation with his other self and prepares to take the war to the father they both despise…

At this time, Steve Gerber was Marvel’s undisputed Wizard of Weird: a brilliant, erudite, sensitive and ingenious writer who could make almost any off-the-wall concept accessible to readers – everything from Man-Thing to Howard the Duck, Daredevil to Sub-Mariner, Marvel Two-In-One to Iron Man.

He assumed the writer’s reins with Marvel Spotlight #14, joining artists Mooney & Sal Trapani in lying out a career path for the infernal antihero. It began with ‘Ice and Hellfire’ as the demonologist relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, at the request of Gateway University parapsychologist Dr. Katherine Reynolds. She has been terrorised and terrified by a string of bizarre apparitions and periodic poltergeist phenomena plaguing the campus…

Hellstrom soon uncovers an infestation of Ikthalon ice demons, and that these vile visitors and frozen furies are not invaders but have been summoned. In order to defeat them he takes Reynolds into his confidence and is enraged but unsurprised when she fails him…

Resorting to his father’s tactics to repulse the demons, Hellstrom sticks around for reasons he cannot fathom, and #15 (an all-Mooney art job) sees him endure a sinister physical change as a monstrous – possibly prophetic – dream propels him into a state of permanent chaos as his divergent natures fully merge into one eternally warring personality.

Accepting a lecturer’s position at Gateway, Hellstrom then disrupts an undergraduate ‘Black Sabbath’ and clashes again with his father – in his demonic iteration Baphomet – to save the souls of some stupidly curios students…

Trapani inked #16 as ‘4000 Holes in Forest Park!’ lure the exorcist into a very public media circus when a mysterious overnight event entices every kind of whacko out of the woodwork… as well as far less harmless loons like Christian End-Timers and a depraved Legion of Nihilists…

Inevitably the park explodes into a religion-fuelled riot, and when the Son of Satan intervenes, his supernal hellfire gimmick only exacerbates matters, igniting the scattered holes to form a colossal blazing pictogram. When the image then materialises into physical life, Dr. Reynolds and Divinity student Byron Hyatt are hurled back in time to the days before Atlantis sank, resulting in a shattering confrontation and startling glimpse at how magic reshaped the world in MS #17’s ‘In the Shadow of the Serpent!’ Schooled by legendary sorceress Zhered-Na, Hellstrom learns the necessity of catastrophe and the cosmic purpose of disaster, as well as his true role in existence before returning to the present with his fellow voyagers.

Gene Colan stepped in with #18, and – inked by Chiaramonte – takes the exorcist into a ‘Madhouse!’ when Katherine drags Daimon to a party attended by faculty and fellow parapsychologists only to find the festivities befouled by an act of animal cruelty.

The next morning Hellstrom learns that the house burned down after he left, and – curiosity aroused – investigates the ruins and detects psychic evil of tremendous potency. The fresh trail leads to young Melissa who has become the new home of truly ancient evil…

However, even after seemingly banishing ghastly Allatou back to damnation, the rescue mission continues as #19 (inked by Mike Esposito) then pits the exorcist against the girl’s fully-occupied parents in ‘Demon, Demon, Who’s Got the Demon?’: a brutal struggle that only ends when Daimon abandons holy lore and crushes his opponent with the Devil’s despised power and tactics…

Sal Buscema & Al McWilliams limned #20 as ‘The Fool’s Path!’ sees Satan’s Son targeted by a bizarre tarot reader and attacked by her animated cards. Three covers from previous SoS collections then offer a brief pause before #21 concludes the manic mystery in ‘Mourning at Dawn!’ with Joe Giella inks – exposing Madame Swabada’s incredible true nature… The battle concludes in the Bob McLeod inked ‘Journey into Himself!’ with Daimon corporeally confronting his past and a legion of demons and – ultimately – the true cause of all his woes…

Marvel Team-Up #32 – by Gerry Conway, Buscema & Vince Colletta – then offered a fiery collaboration between Human Torch Johnny Storm and Hellstrom. The exorcist inflicts ‘All the Fires in Hell…!’ on a demon possessing Johnny’s best pal Wyatt Wingfoot and assorted fellow members of his Native American Keewazi tribe. An era ended in Marvel Spotlight #23, as Gerber, Mike Friedrich, Sal B & Dan Green declare ‘In this Light, Darkness!’ with Hellstrom looking to conclude his unfinished business with the Legion of Nihilists before leaving St. Louis. The task is delayed when aged sage Father Darklyte seeks to test the scholar, only to be exposed for the menace he is…

The inheritor of Hell ended his tenure in Spotlight with #24 (October 1975) as Chris Claremont, Buscema & McLeod made him ‘Walk the Darkling Road!’ after mortal satanist Gloria Hefford summons Kthara, the Mother of Demons. Travelling to Los Angeles, Daimon seeks to save her, but is manipulated into clashing with his despised younger sister Satana: a girl after her daddy’s heart…

Even after uniting to stop Kthara, no bridges are built or fences mended between the infernal siblings…

The dispossessed Dauphin of Darkness moved into his own place as – cover-dated December 1975 – The Son of Satan #1 proclaimed ‘The Homecoming!’ as scripter John Warner, splash page artist Jim Starlin and story illustrator Jim Mooney took the eccentric exorcist into strange new territory as Hellstrom returned to the family house only to find it defiled. By invading Hell, he then learns that civil war has come to the pit as his father struggles against a usurper called The Possessor: a human who can control demons…

The war spreads, enveloping a well-meaning Navajo shaman in ‘The Possession!’ – illustrated by Sonny Trinidad – and emptying his village of living souls. As Hellstrom probes the history of the Possessor his inquiries take him back to Hell where the deranged super-psychic has his tool Nightfire lead ensorcelled tribesmen in an attack on the infernal hierarchy that the exorcist is barely able to stop in concluding clash ‘Demon’s Head’…

Another brief diversion takes us to Marvel Two-In-One #14 where Bill Mantlo, Trimpe & John Tartaglione take Ben Grimm to a western ‘Ghost Town!’ for a spooky encounter with spectres and demons. The notoriously superstitious Thing thought he was on a mission of mercy, but needed much merciful magical assistance from exorcist Daimon Hellstrom to escape the deadly grip of sinister spectre Jedediah Ravenstorm…

The final days of Daimon begin in SoS #4 as Warner, P. Craig Russell & Trinidad form a ‘Cloud of Witness!’ when the scholar returns to academia and meets Georgetown (that’s Washington DC) educator Saripha Thames. He believes he’s a specialist researcher, but is unaware that a hidden mastermind is actually studying him under laboratory conditions…

As always, plagued by incomprehensible dreams, Hellstrom gets an inkling of what’s in play when he’s accosted by higher being the Celestial Fool and challenged over his dual nature…

The mental and spiritual assault intensifies in ‘Assassin’s Mind’, with Daimon apparently unable to control his powers or Darksoul, even as new nemesis Mindstar ups the cosmic stakes before #6 begins pulling the strands together in ‘House of Elements!’ (pencilled by Ed Hannigan).and the mystery is explosively resolved in #7’s ‘Mirror of Judgement!’ by Warner & Trinidad.

The series concluded on an artistic high with #8 as Mantlo and Russ Heath – with additional art from John Romita – offered a treatise on temptation as a disturbing phantom begs ‘…Dance with the Devil My Red-Eyed Son!’. By dragging the Son of Satan through the inferno and history’s greatest flashpoints, someone attempts to seduce and soil his soul. Ultimately however, who can say who tempts whom?

This bombastic broadside of metaphysical mastery also includes the Son of Satan Preview article from Monsters Unleashed #3; Comics Code rejected pages, art from Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries and a selection of reprint covers to complete a superb journey to Comics’ darkest side.

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, Christian boycotts and moral crusades of a later decade compelled increasingly criticism-averse controversy-shy, commercially astute Corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of these tales into watered-down generic and apparently more palatable demonic analogues like Mephisto, Satannish, Marduk Kurios and other equally-naff downgrades. Never forget, however, that the original intent of Ghost Rider, spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and Satana was to tap into the era’s global fascination with supernature and satanism, which had begun with epochal films and novels like Rosemary’s Baby. Please remember these aren’t your modern and feeble Hell-Lite horrors, but concern the real-deal Infernal Realm (as much as the Comics Code would allow) and reflect good people struggling to save their souls from bad breaks and Faustian bargains, so brace yourselves, hold steady and accept no supernal substitutes…
2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Essential Tales of the Zombie volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, Stan Lee, Kit Pearson, Marv Wolfman, Tony Isabella, Chuck Robinson, Chris Claremont, Don McGregor, Doug Moench, Gerry Conway, Lin Carter, John Albano, Gerry Boudreau, Len Wein, Carla Joseph, Kenneth Dreyfack, Carl Wessler, David Anthony Kraft, Larry Lieber, John Warner,  Tony DiPreta, Bill Everett, John Buscema, Tom Palmer, Pablo Marcos , Dick Ayers, Tom Sutton, Syd Shores, Gene Colan, Dick Giordano, Winslow Mortimer, George Tuska, Ralph Reese, Vincente Alcazar, Bill Walton, Enrique Badia, Rich Buckler, Vic Martin, Ron Wilson, Ernie Chan, Russ Heath, Frank Springer, Alfredo Alcala, Dan Green, Michael Kaluta, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, Virgilio Redondo, Yong Montano, Tony DeZuñiga, Rudy Nebres, Boris Vallejo, Earl Norem & various (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-1916-7 (TPB)

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact, as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding established concepts and properties. The only exception was an en masse creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

The switch to sinister supernatural stars brought numerous benefits. Most importantly, it drew a new readership to comics: one attuned to a global revival in spiritualism, Satanism and all things spooky. Almost as important, it gave the reprint-reliant company opportunity to finally recycle old 1950s horror stories that had been rendered unprintable and useless since the code’s inception in 1954.

Spanning August 1973 to March 1975, this moody monochrome tome collects Tales of the Zombie #1-10, plus pertinent portions of Dracula Lives #1-2 but – despite targeting the more mature monochrome magazine market of the 1970s – these stories are oddly coy for a generation born before  video nasties, teen-slasher movies or torture-porn, so it’s unlikely that you’ll need a sofa to hide behind…

The chillers commences with ‘Zombie!’ illustrated by unsung legend Tony DiPreta: one of those aforementioned, unleashed 1950s reprints which found its way as cheap filler into the back of Dracula Lives #1 (August 1973). In this intriguing pot-boiler criminal Blackie Nolan runs for his life when the man he framed for his crimes animates a corpse to exact revenge…

A few months earlier, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas had green-lit a new mature-reader anthology magazine starring a walking deadman, based on a classic 1953 Stan Lee/Bill Everett thriller published in Menace #5.

Cover-dated July 1973, Tales of the Zombie #1 contained a mix of all-new material, choice reprints and text features to thrill and chill the voodoo devotees of comics land. The undead excitement began with ‘Altar of the Damned’ by Thomas, Steve Gerber, John Buscema & Tom Palmer, introducing wealthy Louisiana coffee-magnate Simon Garth as he frantically breaks free of a voodoo cult determined to sacrifice him.

He is aided by priestess Layla who usually earns her daily bread as his secretary. Sadly, the attempt fails and Garth dies, only to be brought back as a mighty, mindless slave of his worst enemy Gyps – a petty, lecherous gardener fired for leering at the boss’ daughter…

Next comes a retouched, modified reprint of the aforementioned Everett ‘Zombie!’ yarn, adapted to depict Garth as the corpse-walker rampaging through Mardi Gras and inflicting a far more permanent punishment on the ghastly gardener, after which Dick Ayers limned ‘Iron Head’ as a deep sea diver take a decidedly different look at the native art of resurrection…

‘The Sensuous Zombie!’ is a cinematic history of the sub-genre and ‘Back to Back and Belly to Belly at the Zombie Jamboree Ball!’ delivers an editorial tribute to Bill Everett.

after which Kit Pearson, Marv Wolfman & Pablo Marcos expose the secret of ‘The Thing From the Bog!’ before Tom Sutton applies a disinterred tongue to his cheek for the blackly comic story of ‘The Mastermind!’.

Gerber, Buscema & Syd Shores the saga of Simon Garth in ‘Night of the Walking Dead!’, as the murdered man’s daughter loses the arcane amulet which controls the zombie to a psychotic sneak thief…

Dracula Lives #2 introduces ‘The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans!’ (Thomas, Gene Colan & Dick Giordano relates the Lord of Vampires’ clash with undying mistress of magic Marie Laveau (tenuously included here as the charismatic bloodsucker strides past the recently deceased Garth on a crowded Mardi Gras street) before Tales of the Zombie #2 unfolds in its gory entirety.

Gerber & Marcos led off with ‘Voodoo Island!’ as daughter Donna Garth takes ship for Port-Au-Prince, determined to learn all she can about the dark arts, whilst the shambling cadaver of her father is drawn into the nefarious affairs of criminal mastermind Mr. Six. By circuitous means, mindless but instinct-driven Garth also ends up in Haiti – just as a madman turning women into giant spiders decides Donna is an ideal test subject…

Luckily, the former coffee-king’s best friend Anton Cartier is a resident – and expert in Voodoo lore…

‘Voodoo Unto Others’ by Tony Isabella & Winslow Mortimer tells a grim but affecting tale of the law of the Loa, whilst ‘Acid Test’ by Stan Lee & George Tuska is another 1950’s thriller culled from Marvel’s vaults, followed by a text feature by Isabella trumpeting the company’s “next big thing” with ‘Introducing Brother Voodoo’…

It was back to contemporary times with stunning graveyard re-animator yarn ‘Twin Burial’ by Chuck Robinson & Ralph Reese, balanced by Colan classic ‘From Out of the Grave’ after which Chris Claremont asks in expansive prose piece, ‘Voodoo: What’s It All About, Alfred?’

Gerber & Marcos conclude their Garth saga in ‘Night of the Spider!’ before TotZ #3 sees the Zombie still lurching around Haiti in ‘When the Gods Crave Flesh!’, encountering a manic film director and his histrionic starlet wife who want to expose Voodoo to the judgemental celluloid eye of Hollywood.

Bad, bad, bad idea…

Claremont scripted a prose shocker next, contributing part 1 of ‘With the Dawn Comes Death!’ – illustrated with stock movie stills – before ‘Net Result’ offers another Atlas-era DiPreta delight, after which Isabella & Vincente Alcazar excel with an epic of samurai-against-dragon in ‘Warrior’s Burden’.

Don McGregor’s ‘The Night of the Living Dead Goes on and on and on’ provides in-depth analysis of the movie that restarted it all, and Bill Walton limns Fifties fear-fest ‘I Won’t Stay Dead’ before Doug Moench & Enrique Badia deliver a period piece of perfidious plantation peril in ‘Jilimbi[s Word’.

‘Tales of the Zombie Feature Page’ closes the issue with a Gerber interview and critique of George A. Romero’s film Codename: Trixie – which we know today as The Crazies – before Tales of the Zombie #4 (March 1974) opens with ‘The Law and Phillip Bliss’ as the mystic Amulet of Damballah irresistibly draws Garth back to New Orleans at the unwitting behest of a down-and-out with a grudge…

Another movie feature by McGregor follows, examining the spooky overtones of then-current Bond flick Live and Let Die, after which Gerry Conway, Rich Buckler, Vic Martin & Mortimer crafted a comic strip film-thriller in ‘The Drums of Doom!’

Fantasy author Lin Carter explores modern supernatural proliferation in ‘Neo-Witchcraft’ before ‘Courtship by Voodoo’ (Isabella & Ron Wilson) recounts Egyptian romantic antics, and Moench & Mortimer disclose the downside of desecrating graves in ‘Nightfilth Rising’.

John Albano & Ernie Chua (nee Chan) tell a tragic tale of ‘Four Daughters of Satan’ before ‘The Law and Phillip Bliss’ concludes in cathartic slaughter of high-priced lawyers, whilst ‘The Zombie Feature Page’ highlights the work and life of artist Pablo Marcos.

‘Palace of Black Magic!’ then sees Phil Glass lose the amulet – and control of Garth – to Mr. Six with the Zombie becoming a terrifying weapon of sinister Voodoun lord Papa Shorty, until his new master’s own arrogance lead to carnage and a kind of freedom for the Dead Man Walking. Issue #5 continues with Moench’s filmic tribute article ‘White Zombie: Faithful Unto Death’ and a Russ Heath Atlas classic ‘Who Walks with a Zombie?’

The concluding instalment of Claremont’s article ‘With the Dawn Comes Death!’ precedes text infomercial ‘Brother Voodoo Lives Again’ and new western horror saga ‘Voodoo War’ by Isabella, Shores & Ayers, and TotZ# 5 ends on a gritty high with ‘Death’s Bleak Birth!’: a powerful supernatural crime thriller by Moench & Frank Springer.

Tales of the Zombie #6 (July) opens with a handy update of events thus far before launching into Gerber & Marcos’ ‘Child of Darkness!’ wherein the anguished ambulatory remains of Simon Garth interrupt a Voodoo ritual and encounter once more the Mambo Layla, who tries in vain to save him before his death and revivification. Even together, they are unprepared for the vicious thing lurking in the swamp’s deepest recesses…

Gerry Boudreau explores the genre’s history by critiquing Hammer Films’ ‘The Plague of the Zombies’, followed by a hilarious photo-feature on Zombie/blacksploitation movie ‘Sugar Hill’ and Claremont’s article on all things undead ‘The Compleat Voodoo Man’.

Brother Voodoo initially ran in Strange Tales #169-173 (September 1973-April 1974) but ended on a cliffhanger. It finishes here in Moench, Len Wein, Colan & Frank Chiaramonte’s ‘End of a Legend!’ as the Man with Two Souls finally defeats Voodoo villain Black Talon.

Carla Joseph’s ‘The Voodoo Beat’ rounds up a selection of movies and books then available regarding all things Cadaverous and Fetishy before Moench & Alfredo Alcala provide a fill-in tale in ‘The Blood-Testament of Brian Collier’ wherein Garth shambles into a High Society murder-mystery, followed by a Village Voice article by Kenneth Dreyfack on ‘Voodoo in the Park’, notable for comics fans because it’s illustrated by future great Dan Green.

Moench & Mortimer’s comics featurette ‘Haiti’s Walking Dead’ and Claremont’s book review ‘Inside Voodoo’ take us the issue end and ‘A Second Chance to Die’ – a classy short thriller by Carl Wessler & Alcala.

Tales of the Zombie #8 (November) opens with a similar frontispiece feature by Isabella & Michael Kaluta ‘The Voodoo Killers’ before Gerber & Marcos return with ‘A Death Made of Ticky-Tacky’ as Garth and Layla finally reach New Orleans and fall foul of bored urban swingers seeking a different kind of good time. ‘Jimmy Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’ offers a chilling prose vignette from David Anthony Kraft, liberally illustrated by Kaluta.

‘Night of the Hunter’ by scripter Larry Lieber and artists Ron Wilson, Mike Esposito & Frank Giacoia sees a corrupt prison guard realise he’s tortured and killed the wrong black man, when the victim’s brother turns up straight from the sinister heart of Haiti…

‘Tales of the Happy Humfo’ is another Claremont voodoo article, spiced up with Kaluta drawings after which Alcala again closes show down with ‘Makao’s Vengeance’: a slick jungle chiller scripted by Kraft.

The first issue of 1975 opens with Isabella & Mortimer’s ‘Was He a Voodoo-Man?’, after which the author scripted stunning Zombie headliner ‘Simon Garth Lives Again!’, illustrated by Virgilio Redondo & Alcala, and Claremont & Yong Montano contribute second chapter ‘A Day in the Life of a Dead Man’ (Alcala inks) before Isabella & Marcos conclude the Garth extravaganza with ‘The Second Death Around’.

As an added bonus Moench & Alcala also designed a swampy slaughter-party in ‘Herbie the Liar Said it Wouldn’t Hurt!’…

Tales of the Zombie #10 (March 1975) leads with a Brother Voodoo tale by Moench & Tony DeZuñiga, wherein the Lord of the Loa struggles to prevent ‘The Resurrection of Papa Jambo’ because the scheduled Simon Garth saga had been lost in the post at time of printing). Bringing up the rear were medical nightmare ‘Eye For an Eye, Tooth For a Tooth’ by Conway, Virgilio Redondo & Rudy Nebres and Wessler, John Warner & Alcazar’s death-row chiller ‘Malaka’s Curse!’ with Sutton’s macabre ‘Grave Business’ the last seen treat…

By this time the horror boom was beginning to bust, and the advertised 11th issue never materialised. An all-reprint Tales of the Zombie Super-Annual was released that summer, with only its cover reproduced here.

Peppered with vivid Zombie pin-ups by Marcos & Sutton, and covers by Boris Vallejo and Earl Norem, this intriguing monochrome compendium – although a bit dated – contains what passed for Explicit Content in the mid-1970s, so although the frights should be nothing for today’s older kids, the occasional nipple or buttock might well send them screaming over the edge.

However, with appropriate mature supervision I’m sure this groovy gore-fest will delight many a brain-eating fright fan, until Marvel get around to properly reviving this tragic revenant’s roots and earliest recorded revels.
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 2006 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Werewolf by Night – The Complete Collection volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Roy & Jean Thomas, Mike Ploog, Werner Roth, Ross Andru, Tom Sutton, Gil Kane, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-30290-839-3 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Utterly Uncanny and Irresistible Comics Chillers… 9/10

Now a star of page and screen, Werewolf by Night could be described as the true start of the Marvel Age of Horror. Although now technically supplanted by modern Hopi/Latino lycanthrope Jake Gomez – who’s shared the designation since 2020 – the trials of a teen wolf opened the floodgates to a stream of Marvel monster stars and horror antiheroes. Happy 50th anniversary, kid!

Inspiration isn’t everything. In 1970, as Marvel consolidated its new position of market dominance – even after losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so employing a wave of new young talent, but less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was the mass-move into horror titles: a response to an industry down-turn in superhero sales, and a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight scary monsters became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too), the creative aspect of the revived fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics would be incorporated into the print mix and shared universe mix as readily as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel launched a line of sinister superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire…

Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by western-era hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by Ghost Rider). In actuality, the series title, if not the actual star character, was recycled from a classic pre-Comics Code short suspense-thriller from Marvel Tales #116, July 1953. Marvel always favoured a using old (presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. The Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got nominal starts as hairy underpants monsters or throwaways in some anthology or other.

This copious compendium collects the early adventures of a young West Coast lycanthrope re-presenting the contents of Marvel Spotlight #2-4, Werewolf by Night volume 1 #1-15; a guest-shot from Marvel Team-Up #12 and material from the appropriate half of a horror crossover with Tomb of Dracula #18. These cumulatively span February 1972 through 1974.

Following an informative, scene-setting Introduction by long-term Marvel Editor Ralph Macchio, the moonlit madness begins with the landmark first appearance, introducing teenager Jack Russell, who is suffering some sleepless nights…

Cover-dated February 1972 ‘Werewolf by Night!’ (Marvel Spotlight #2), was written by Gerry Conway and moodily, magnificently illustrated by Mike Ploog – the manner of his old mentor Will Eisner. The character concept came from an outline by Roy & Jeanie Thomas, describing the worst day of Jack’s life – his 18th birthday – which begins with nightmares and ends in something far worse.

Jack’s mother and little sister Lissa are everything a fatherless boy could hope for, but new stepfather Philip and creepy chauffeur Grant are another matter. Try as he might, Jack can’t help but see them as self-serving and with hidden agendas…

At his party that evening, Jack has an agonising seizure and flees into the Malibu night to transform for the first time into a ravening vulpine man-beast. At dawn, he awakes wasted on a beach to learn that his mother has been gravely injured in a car crash. Something had happened to her brakes…

Sneaking into her hospital room, the distraught teen is astonished to hear her relate the story of his birth-father: an Eastern European noble who loved her deeply, but locked himself away three nights every month…

The Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reach 18 years of age. Jack is horrified and then realises how soon his sister will reach her own majority…

With her dying breath Laura Russell makes her son promise never to harm his stepfather, no matter what…

Scenario set, with the traumatised wolf-boy uncontrollably transforming three nights every month, the weird, wild wonderment begins in earnest with the beast attacking the creepy chauffeur – who had doctored those car-brakes – but refraining, even in vulpine form, from attacking Philip Russell…

The second instalment sees the reluctant nocturnal predator rescue Lissa from a sick and rowdy biker gang (they were everywhere back then) and narrowly escape the cops only to be abducted by a sinister dowager seeking knowledge of a magical tome called the Darkhold. The legendary spell-book is the apparent basis of the Russoff curse, but when Jack can’t produce the goods he’s left to the mercies of ‘The Thing in the Cellar!’…

Surviving more by luck than power, Jack’s third try-out issue fetches him up on an ‘Island of the Damned!’: introducing aging Hollywood writer Buck Cowan, who will become Jack’s best friend and affirming father-figure as they jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s evil stepdad.

Russell had apparently sold off Jack’s inheritance, leaving the boy nothing but an old book. Following a paper trail to find proof Philip had Laura Russell killed leads them to an offshore fortress, a dungeon full of horrors and a ruthless mutant seductress…

That episode ended on a cliffhanger, presumably as an added incentive to buy Werewolf by Night #1 (September 1972), wherein Frank Chiaramonte assumed inking duties with ‘Eye of the Beholder!…

Merciless biological freak Marlene Blackgar and her monstrous posse abduct the entire Russell family whilst looking for the Book of Sins, until – once more – a fearsome force of supernature awakes to accidentally save the day as night falls…

With ‘The Hunter… and the Hunted!’ Jack and Buck deposit the trouble-magnet grimoire with Father Joquez, a Christian monk and scholar of ancient texts, but are still hunted because of it. Jack quits the rural wastes of Malibu for a new home in Los Angeles, trading forests and surf for concrete canyons but life is no easier.

In #2, dying scientist Cephalos seeks to harness Jack’s feral life-force to extend his own existence, living only long enough to regret it. Meanwhile, Joquez successfully translates the Darkhold: an accomplishment allowing ancient horror to possess him in WbN #3, sparking ‘The Mystery of the Mad Monk!’

Whilst the werewolf is saddened to end such a noble life, he feels far happier dealing with millionaire sportsman Joshua Kane, who craves a truly unique head mounted on the wall of his den in the Franke Bolle inked ‘The Danger Game’. Half-naked, exhausted and soaked to his now hairless skin, Jack must then deal with Kane’s deranged brother, who wants the werewolf for his pet assassin in ‘A Life for a Death!’ (by Len Wein & Ploog) after which ‘Carnival of Fear!’ (Bolle inks again) finds the beast – and Jack, once the sun rises – a pitiful captive of seedy mystic Swami Calliope and his deadly circus of freaks.

The wolf was now the subject of an obsessive police detective too. “Old-school cop” Lou Hackett is an old buddy of trophy-hunter Joshua Kane – and every bit as savage – but his off-the-books investigation hardly begins before the Swami’s plans fall apart in concluding tale ‘Ritual of Blood!’ (inked by Jim Mooney).

The beast is safely(?) roaming loose in the backwoods for #8’s quirky monster-mash when an ancient demon possesses a cute little bunny in Wein, Werner Roth & Paul Reinman’s ‘The Lurker Behind the Door!’, before neatly segueing to a slight but stirring engagement in Marvel Team-Up #12 wherein Wein, Conway, Ross Andru & Don Perlin expose a ‘Wolf at Bay!’ As webspinning wallcrawler meets werewolf, they initially battle each other – and ultimately malevolent mage Moondark – in foggy, fearful San Francisco before Jack heads back to LA and ‘Terror Beneath the Earth!’

Here Conway, Tom Sutton & George Roussos dip into an impeding and thoroughly nefarious scheme by business cartel The Committee. These commercial gurus somehow possess a full dossier on Jack Russell’s night-life, and hire a maniac sewer-dwelling sound engineer to execute a radical plan to use monsters and derelicts to boost sales in a down-turned economy.

However, the bold scheme to promote “growth, Growth, GROWTH” by frightening folk into spending more is ended before it begins since the werewolf proves to be far from a team-player in the wrap up ‘The Sinister Secret of Sarnak!’

Issue #11 revelled in irony as Marv Wolfman signed on as scripter for ‘Comes the Hangman’ – illustrated by incredible action ace Gil Kane & Sutton – in something interesting about Philip Russell and the Committee is disclosed, even as Jack’s attention is distracted by a new apartment, a very odd neighbour and a serial kidnapper abducting young women to keep them safe from “corruption”. When the delusional hooded hero snatches Lissa, he soon finds himself hunted by a monster beyond his wildest dreams…

Concluding chapter ‘Cry Werewolf!’ brings in the criminally underappreciated Don Perlin as inker. In a few short months he would become the strip’s penciller, lasting for the rest of the run. Before that though, Ploog & Chiaramonte return for another session, introducing another maniac mystic and a new love-interest (but not the same person) for WbN #13’s ‘His Name is Taboo’.

An aged sorcerer coveting the werewolf’s energies for his own arcane purposes, the magician is stunned when his adopted daughter Topaz finds her loyalties divided and her psionic abilities more help than hindrance to the ravening moon-beast. ‘Lo, the Monster Strikes!’ then pits the wolf against Taboo’s undead-but-getting better son, delivering unexpected revelation and reconciliation between Philip and Jack Russell. As a result, the young man and new girlfriend Topaz set off for Transylvania, the ancestral Russoff estate and a crossover clash with the Lord of Vampires.

Tomb of Dracula #18 (March 1974) begins the battle with ‘Enter: Werewolf by Night’ (Wolfman, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer) as Jack and Topaz investigate a potential cure for lycanthropy, only to be attacked by rampant menace to humanity Count Dracula. Driven off by the girl’s psychic powers the undead aristocrat realises the threat she poses to him and resolves to end her…

The confrontation and this first tome conclude with Werewolf by Night #15 and the ‘Death of a Monster!’ (Wolfman, Ploog & Chiaramonte) as the demonic duel devolves into a messy stalemate… but only after Jack learns of his family’s long hidden connection to Dracula…

Supplemented with an unused Ploog cover for Marvel Spotlight#4; Kane’s pre-corrections cover to ToD #18 and previous collection covers by Ploog & Dan Kemp, this initial complete compendium also offers a wealth of original art pages (20 in total) by Ploog, Sutton & Andru.

A moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action, this book covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling chillers to delight any fright fan or drama addict. If you crave a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers and moody young misses, this is a far more entertaining mix than most modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Werewolf by Night – The Complete Collection volume 3


By Doug Moench, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, Steven Grant, Michael Fleisher, Mark Gruenwald, Yong Montaño, Don Perlin, Frank Robbins, Carmine Infantino, Steve Leialoha, Bill Sienkiewicz, Tom Sutton, Win Mortimer & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1158-4 (TPB)

As Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in 1970, in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators – Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was a mass release of horror titles rapidly devised in response to an industry-wide downturn in superhero sales. This move was handily expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight, nasty monsters (as well as narcotics and bent coppers – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and, whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too), the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered for by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watch-word was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible.

When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a whole line of scary superstars – beginning with a werewolf and traditional vampire – before chancing something new via a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider‘s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist.

With its title cribbed from a classic short thriller from pre-Code horror anthology Marvel Tales #116 (July 1953), Werewolf by Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2. It had been preceded by masked western hero Red Wolf in #1 and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider revival, but this hairy hero was destined to stick around for a while. Marvel had a long-time tradition of using old (and presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got notional starts as throwaways before being re-imagined as major characters…

This third copious trade paperback and eBook compendium compiles more moody misadventures of a good-hearted young West Coast lycanthrope who briefly shone as an unlikely star for the entire length of a trading trend, Werewolf By Night #31-43, Giant-Size Werewolf #5, Marvel Premiere #28 & 59, Spider-Woman #6, 19 & 32, Marvel Team-Up #93, Ghost Rider #55, and Moon Knight #29-30: ending his solo run and gathering the many guest shots the lycanthrope enjoyed afterwards, collectively spanning July 1975 to April 1982.

Jack Russell is a teenager with a thankfully rare but very disturbing condition. On her deathbed, his mother revealed unsuspected Transylvanian origins to her beloved boy: relating a family curse which would turn him into a raging beast on every night with a full moon… as soon as he reached his 18th birthday.

And so it began…

After many months of misunderstanding as Jack tried to cope alone with his periodic wild side, Jack’s stepfather Philip Russell expanded the story, revealing how the Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached eighteen.

Moreover, the feral blight would do the same to his little sister Lissa when she reached her own majority…

As Jack tried and repeatedly failed to balance a normal life with his monthly cycle of uncontrollable ferocity, he met his eventual mentor and confidante Buck Cowan, an aging writer who became Jack’s best friend after the pair began to jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s history. Their incessant search for a cure was made more urgent by little Lissa’s ever-encroaching birthday. Along the way Jack even found a steady girlfriend who understood his needs. Of course, Topaz was a mystically empowered terror with family issues from hell…

During their researches they clashed swords with many monsters – human or otherwise – including off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his hunt for a werewolf nobody believed in, and fellow lycanthrope Raymond Coker who had found a shocking remedy to their condition…

For one werewolf to lift his curse he/she had to kill another one…

Following a context-expanding Introduction from former Marvel editor Ralph Macchio, the shaggy suspense resumes with Giant-Size Werewolf #5 which shifted into full-on fantasy mode. Scripted by Doug Moench and illustrated by Yong Montaño, ‘Prologue: I Werewolf’ recaps Jack’s peculiar problems before ‘The Plunder of Paingloss’ discloses how the leaders of dimensional realm Biphasia – permanently polarised between night and day – instigate a ‘Bad Deal with the Devil’s Disciple’ on Earth when demonist Joaquin Zairre kidnaps the werewolf…

With the beast dispatched though a ‘Doorway of the Dark Waters’, Jack is soon a pawn in a sorcerous war where ‘Fragile Magic’ on the world of light and darkness allows him and his allies to raid the ‘The Ark of Onom-Kra’ and expose a secret tyrant in ‘Silver Rain, Sardanus and Shadow’…

Returned to the real world, Werewolf by Night #31 (July 1975) offers a turning point as ‘Death in White’ (Moench & regular artist/co-plotter Don Perlin) sees Jack plumb depths of utter despair after a skiing weekend turns into a nightmare when the werewolf stalks a little girl and Buck nearly dies trying to save her…

WBN #32 (August 1975) then introduces mercenary Marc Spector who is hired by criminal capitalists, equipped with a silver-armoured costume and weapons and tasked with capturing Russell or his animal other as ‘…The Stalker Called Moon Knight’ (Doug & Don with the assistance of Howie Perlin).

The bombastic battle and its ferocious sequel ‘Wolf-Beast vs. Moon Knight’ received an unprecedented response and quickly propelled the lunar avenger to prominence as Marvel’s edgy answer to Batman: especially after the mercurial merc rejects his employers’ entreaties and lets the wolf, as well as collateral hostages Lissa and Topaz, run free…

Next up is a uniquely odd attempt to create a team of terrors. Marvel Premiere #28 (February 1976) introduced the initial iteration of The Legion of Monsters in ‘There’s a Mountain on Sunset Boulevard!’ courtesy of Bill Mantlo, Frank Robbins & Steve Gan.

When an ancient alien manifests a rocky peak in LA, the werewolf, Man-Thing, Morbius and Ghost Rider are irresistibly drawn into a bizarre confrontation which might have resulted in the answer to all their wishes and hopes, but instead only leads to destruction, death and deep disappointment…

In Werewolf by Night #34 (October 1975, by Moench & Perlin) another extended eerie suspense saga sees Jack, Lissa, Topaz and Buck’s girlfriend Elaine Marston brave a haunted house in search of a cure for Cowan’s werewolf-caused coma.

Elaine had lost her first husband to the doomed domicile and it takes a lot to bring her back. That triggering event is the dying Buck muttering the name of deceased spiritualist Belaric Marcosa – who apparently still roams the hell-house where ‘Not All the Shades of Death nor Evil’s Majesty’ can rein in his sadistic games…

Braving the unknown, the terrified quartet fetch up to the mansion and are soon enduring ‘Evil in Every Stone, No Longer Hiding’; becoming enmired in a war between ‘Marcosa in Death’ and the trapped spirits of the countless victims he has tortured and destroyed.

Their horrific psychological ordeal eventually results in victory for Jack and his companions as ‘The End’ produces a miraculous recovery in the dying Buck and the cessation of Marcosa’s phantom depredations…

With tastes changing, WBN #38 takes a sharp change of direction as Jack exiles himself to the wilderness, only to stumble on a desperate fugitive fighting to save his baby from a murderous gangster who had taken up with his former wife. In the midst of such mundane matters, Jack is visited by a trinity of infinite beings who threaten to alter his existence forever and ominously warn that ‘Rebirth Also Kills’…

The celestial visitants are also in touch with former werewolf Raymond Coker as he squats in a hut in distant Haiti, and even appear to Lissa and Topaz as they tend the still-recuperating Buck.

The “Three Who Are All” are subtly ensuring all players are in place for a game of cosmic consequences and in #39, when Jack races back to his friend, he finds Coker and mystic troubleshooter Brother Voodoo waiting. No sooner are introductions made than an army of zuvembies (posh name for magical zombies, okay?) attack and Russell learns that ‘Some are Born to the Night’…

Portentous proclamations of unfulfilled destinies propel the adventurers and Topaz back to Haiti where obsessed former cop Vic Northrup is looking for answers to Lou Hackett’s death. Ahead of them all is an infernal pit nurturing a shocking travesty of life with resurrected wizard Dr. Glitternight in charge of all the ‘Souls in Darkness’…

Revealed in WBN #41 as a former member of the gestalt which was once “Five Who Are All”, Glitternight’s fascination with monster-making is at last explained as the arcane abomination’s attempts to dominate reality are spectacularly thwarted through the return of the missing fourth celestial as well as the indomitable resistance of Brother Voodoo and Jack in ‘…And Death Shall be the Change’…

Key to their eventual triumph is the moment when Russell discovers how to transform into a werewolf in full control of his mental faculties; at will, day or night…

Returning to America, the Werewolf-by-Choice naturally decides to become a superhero and moves to New York in time to stumble onto a plot by the Masked Marauder. Also on scene, is a certain Armoured Avenger and, after the usual misunderstandings, Jack is shaggy knees-deep in trouble with ‘The Marauder and the Man of Iron’…

The tale – and the series – concludes in Werewolf by Night #43 (March 1977) as ensorcelled fang-&-claw unite with high-tech wizardry to destroy an awesome animalistic automaton and end the ‘Terrible Threat of the Tri-Animan’…

Despite the rather lame and ill-considered attempt to reinvent the series at the last, this moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments and terror tales in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. The public and numerous creators must have agreed with the sentiment as Jack Russell became a regular on the guest circuit, popping up in many other ascendant titles.

One such cameo was Spider-Woman #6 (September 1978, by Marv Wolfman, Carmine Infantino & Rick Bryant) as arachnoid outcast Jessica Drew battled ancient sorceress Morgan Le Fay. ‘End of a Nightmare!!’ saw the duel impinge on Russell just as he locks himself away for the three nights of the full moon when his newfound sentience is overwhelmed by lunar lunacy. Cue vicious, inconclusive clash…

In Spider-Woman #19 (October 1979) Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant, Infantino & Mike Esposito unleashed ‘The Beast Within’ when newly-directionless Jessica stumbles into the Werewolf again, just as Russell is hunting murderous super-criminal The Enforcer. The resultant collaboration is less than stellar and far from harmonious…

Carrying on as a clandestine crusader, the Werewolf allies with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #93 (May 1980) as Grant, Tom Sutton, Infantino & Jim Mooney detail how the webslinger stumbles into Jack’s pursuit of the Enforcer only to encounter another old enemy: demented sewer-dweller Tatterdemalion. ‘Rags to Riches!’ pits the mismatched heroes against the deranged dreg before the wallcrawler is diverted by seductive sociopath Dansen Macabre, leaving Jack to soldier on until Spider-Woman #32 (November 1980), where he unwillingly subjects Jessica Drew to ‘The Fangs of Werewolf by Night’, thanks to mind-bending villain Dr. Malus and creative team Michael Fleisher, Steve Leialoha & Mooney…

Ghost Rider #55 (April 1981, by Fleisher & Perlin) sees the Werewolf’s hunt for Tatterdemalion again derailed when the lycanthrope is mistakenly intercepted by Johnny Blaze in his demon biker incarnation, after which a vignette from Marvel Premiere #59 in the same month finds Jack and Lissa forced to suffer ‘Full Moon on the Highway!’ (by Grant & Win Mortimer, April 1981) after a traffic spill delays their rush for isolation and safety.

Since his WBN debut, Moon Knight had developed into a cult classic character, lurking in his own dark corner of the Marvel Universe and allowing moodier, more experimental fare to blossom.

Moon Knight #29 and 30 (March and April 1982) offered some of the most potent material of his initial run, and most visceral art of the entire decade in ‘Morning Star’ and ‘The Moonwraith, three Sixes and a Beast’ by Moench & Bill Sienkiewicz wherein Jack Russell is targeted by a publicity-hungry band of militant Satanists led by the cunning Belial.

This savvy deceiver tries to turn the Werewolf into the biblical Beast of the Apocalypse to usher in the end of days and bolster the flagging support of his congregation. When the fugitive Russell’s flight brings him to New York, it’s just as the full moon robs him of his usual control of the predator within…

Ultimately, however, Fist of Khonshu and Wild Thing table their differences long enough to end the threat of the mobster-like cultists and save the world. …And when the fur and fists finish flying, the Werewolf lopes off into the unknown…

This classic compendium concludes with a bonanza of bonus features, beginning with Sienkiewicz’s stunning back cover portrait of the best from Moon Knight #29; assorted pin-ups, original art/ covers and text features taken from the various issues gathered here.

This moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history; tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. If you feel the urge to indulge in a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers and moody young misses – this is a far more entertaining mix than many modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Werewolf by Night – the Complete Collection volume 2


By Gerry Conway, Mike Friedrich, Tony Isabella, Doug Moench, Mike Ploog, Don Perlin, Pat Broderick, Vigilio Redondo, Yong Montaño & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-30290-

As Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in 1970, in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators – Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was a mass release of horror titles rapidly devised in response to an industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales. The move was handily expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (plus narcotics and bent coppers – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watch-word was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible.

When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary superstars – beginning with a werewolf and traditional vampire – before chancing something new via a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist.

With its title cribbed from a classic short thriller from pre-Code horror anthology Marvel Tales #116 (July 1953), Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2. It had been preceded by masked western hero Red Wolf in #1 and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider, but this hairy hero was destined to stick around for a while.

Marvel had a long-time tradition of using old (and presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got notional starts as throwaways before being re-imagined as major characters…

This copious trade paperback and eBook compendium compiles more moody misadventures of a good-hearted young West Coast lycanthrope who briefly shone as an unlikely star for the entire length of a trading trend, Werewolf By Night volume 1 #16-30, Giant-Size Creatures #1, Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #2-4, and a melange of monochrome material from Monsters Unleashed #6-7: all collectively spanning April 1974 to June 1975.

Jack Russell is a teenager with a thankfully rare but very disturbing condition. On her deathbed, his mother revealed unsuspected Transylvanian origins to her beloved boy: relating a family curse which would turn him into a raging beast on every night with a full moon… as soon as he reached his 18th birthday.

And so it began…

After many months of misunderstanding as Jack tried to cope alone with his periodic wild side, Jack’s stepfather Philip Russell expanded the story, revealing how the Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached eighteen.

Moreover, the feral blight would do the same to his little sister Lissa when she reached her own majority…

As Jack tried and repeatedly failed to balance a normal life with his monthly cycle of uncontrollable ferocity, he met his eventual mentor and confidante Buck Cowan, an aging writer who became Jack’s best friend after the pair began to jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s history. Their incessant search for a cure was made more urgent by little Lissa’s ever-encroaching birthday.

In the course of their researches they crossed swords with many monsters – human and otherwise – including off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his hunt for a werewolf nobody believed in, and fellow lycanthrope Raymond Coker who had found a shocking remedy to their condition…

For one werewolf to lift his curse he/she had to kill another one…

Following an Introduction from former Marvel editor Ralph Macchio, the suspense resumes with Jack in Paris. Seeking a cure in his Balkan homeland, but instead clashing with vampire lord Dracula, Jack and his new girlfriend Topaz (a powerful, mystically-attuned psychic and psionic) were enduring a tiresome – and crucially untimely – forced stopover in the City of Lights…

This leads to an impromptu clash with a modern-day incarnation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame (he doesn’t sing and he’s not very gentle here) and ‘Death in the Cathedral!’. Scripted by Mike Friedrich and inked by Frank Chiaramonte, this bombastic battle was co-originator Mike Ploog’s farewell performance as artist in residence.

WBN #17 was by Friedrich & Don Perlin, with Jack and Topaz escaping Paris only to fall into the Committee’s latest scheme as the blustering Baron Thunder and his favourite monster ‘The Behemoth!’ tried to make the werewolf their plaything again.

The Committee were a long-term adversary: a cabal of crazy capitalists who wanted to own the werewolf because he could scare the public, allowing them to create a panic-crazed sales boom…

The tale concluded in ‘Murder by Moonlight!’ as the secret of Jack’s mystery neighbour is exposed when Thunder attacks again, aided by witch-queen Ma Mayhem. However, it was all a feint for the Committee to kidnap Lissa who would, one day soon, become a werewolf too…

Whilst searching for her, Jack then falls foul of two undead film-stars haunting the Hollywood backlots in #19’s ‘Vampires on the Moon’ after which Giant-Size Creatures #1 moodily re-imagines a failed costumed crusader to introduce a new creepy champion in ‘Tigra the Were-Woman!’ (by Tony Isabella, Perlin & Vince Colletta).

Here Greer Nelson, one-time feminist avenger The Cat, is “assassinated” by Hydra agents, revived by ancient hidden race the Cat-People and becomes an unwilling object of temporary affection to the feral and frisky moonwalker Jack Russell…

Following ‘Waiter, there’s a Werewolf in my Soup!’ a text piece also from Giant-Size Creatures that explains the genesis of Marvel’s horror line, WBN #20 debuts writer Doug Moench to wrap up all the disparate plot threads in ‘Eye of the Wolf!’: a rushed but satisfactory conclusion featuring a whole pack of werewolves, Thunder, Ma Mayhem and lots and lots of action.

With the decks cleared, Moench began to make the series uniquely his own, beginning with #21’s ‘One Wolf’s Cure… Another’s Poison!’ wherein he starts playing up the ever-encroaching 18th birthday of little Lissa before deftly engineering the final reckoning with off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his obsessive hunt for the werewolf…

With the stage set for some truly outrageous yarn-spinning we abruptly divert to a brace of sidebar shorts taken from Monsters Unleashed #6 and 7.

Here Gerry Conway wrote prose yarn ‘Panic by Moonlight’ and concluding instalment ‘Madness Under a Mid-Summer Moon’ (with spot illustrations by Ploog and Pat Broderick & Klaus Janson) detailing how a gang of bikers picked the wrong night to home-invade the flashy singles complex Jack Russell lived in…

The tantalising diversion is bracketed by the painted covers of the monochrome magazines and Gil Kane’s cover for earlier collection Essential Werewolf By Night volume 2.

With Moench at the helm and almost exclusively pencilled for rest of the run by the criminally underrated Don Perlin, the midnight comics mysteries resume the Vince Colletta inked Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #2 as ‘The Frankenstein Monster Meets Werewolf By Night’.

Roaming the streets of New York in ‘Prisoners of Flesh!’, the recently resurrected massive mute monster hops a freight train west after overhearing of a mystic named Danton Valya who can transplant souls into new bodies…

He arrives in Los Angeles just as Jack Russell discovers Lissa has been abducted by Valya’s Satanist cult ‘To Host the Beast’ before cataclysmically clashing with the monster who has only to let the diabolists sacrifice the werewolf and Lissa to gain his heart’s desire…

Tragically the noble artificial man has more compassion than the cultists and prefers his own sorry existence to benefiting from ‘The Flesh of Satan’s Hate!’…

Werewolf By Night #22 (Moench, Perlin & Colletta) then introduces crazed murder-maniac Atlas, who stalks and slays many of Buck’s movie friends. Moreover, when Russell’s hairy Other encounters the ‘Face of the Fiend!’, Atlas beats the beast unconscious and in the morning light bleary Jack is subsequently arrested for the latest murder…

Lieutenant Vic Northrup was a good friend of deceased former Hackett and knows Russell is hiding something, but eventually has to release him for lack of evidence. Picking Jack up from the station, Buck reveals he has gleaned the inside story of Atlas and his own historical involvement in the story, just in time to become the next target…

Fortuitously, the werewolf is on hand when Atlas attacks and the battle explodes into LA’s streets where disbelieving cops have to admit that ‘The Murderer is a Maniac!’

In #24 Buck introduces Jack to fringe scientist Winston Redditch who claims to have chemically isolated the constituents of the human psyche and thus might be able to suppress Jack’s periodic bestial outbursts. Sadly, the boffin accidentally ingests the serum himself and unleashes ‘The Dark Side of Evil!’

The remorseless sadistic thug he becomes calls himself DePrayve and fights the werewolf to a standstill, giving Northrup an opportunity to capture the hirsute “urban legend” which has stalked the city and drove Hackett crazy…

From WBN #25 the art took a quantum leap in quality as Perlin – already co-plotting the stories – began inking his own pencils. When the beast busts out of custody ‘An Eclipse of Evil’ sees Redditch turning his warped attention to the lycanthrope as a potential guinea pig for further experimentation, only for both the feral fury and dastardly DePrayve to be targeted by a deranged vigilante and “protector of purity” calling himself The Hangman…

The horrific three-way clash results in ‘A Crusade of Murder’, with Redditch hospitalised, the vicious vigilante in custody and battered, bloody-yet-unbowed Jack still free and still cursed…

Eschewing chronological order for the sake of unbroken continuity-clarity, January’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #3 pops up here and reveals a ‘Castle Curse!’ (inked by Sal Trapani) in which Jack returns to Transylvania after receiving a monster-infested vision of former love interest – and psionic powerhouse – Topaz in ‘Spawned in Dream… Slain in Nightmare!’

Jack drags Buck and Lissa ‘Home to Slay!’ in the Balkans, finding the old family home under siege by pitchfork-wielding villagers who have all their worst fears confirmed when he goes hairy and gets hungry, before finally tracking down Topaz in the care – and custody – of a gypsy matriarch with an arcane agenda of her own.

The blood-crazed old witch has a tragic connection to the Russoff line and is exploiting Topaz’s restored powers to enact a grisly ‘Vengeance in Death!’ upon the villagers by raising an army of zombies.

The chain of events she set in motion can only end in slaughter…

Werewolf By Night #27 (March 1975) began a chilling and fantastic extended eldritch epic with the introduction of ‘The Amazing Doctor Glitternight’. Back in the USA, Jack’s feral alter ego runs loose on the isolated Californian coast and is drawn to a cave where a bizarre wizard makes monsters from what appears to be fragments of Topaz’s soul…

The eerie mage is actually hunting for Topaz’s dead stepfather Taboo and will not be gainsaid, even after Jack’s uncontrollable were-beast slaughters his monstrous masterpiece…

The wizard intensifies his campaign in ‘The Darkness from Glitternight’, heaping horrors upon Jack and friends before capturing Lissa on her birthday and using dark magic to turn her from simple werewolf into ‘A Sister of Hell’…

The spectral re-emergence of Taboo proves a turning point as wolf battles hellbeast and everybody clashes with Glitternight before a ‘Red Slash Across Midnight’ seemingly results in a cure for one of the tortured Russell clan…

April’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #4 offers a long-delayed and anticipated clash with living vampire Morbius: beginning with ‘A Meeting of Blood’ (Moench & Virgil Redondo) with the former biologist tracking his old girlfriend Martine and discovering a possible cure for his own exsanguinary condition.

Unfortunately, the chase brings him into savage and inconclusive combat with a certain hairy hellion and the solution is forever lost…

Also included in that double-sized issue is Moench & Yong Montaño’s ‘When the Moon Dripped Blood!’, wherein Jack and Buck stumble across a group of rustic loons all-too-successfully summoning a ghastly elder god. Although great at consuming and converting human offerings and acolytes, the appalling atrocity is seemingly no match for a ravening ball of furious fangs and claws…

This second sinister compendium concludes with a bonanza of bonus features: Arthur Adams & Jason Keith’s Werewolf By Night Omnibus cover, original art pages by Ploog & Chiaramonte, Perlin & Colletta and all-Perlin, plus werewolf art by Perlin & Joe Rubinstein and Paul Ryan & Rubinstein taken from various iterations of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

This moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history; tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. If you feel the urge to indulge in a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers and moody young misses – this is a far more entertaining mix than many modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 1972, 1974, 1975, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Werewolf by Night – the Complete Collection volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Roy & Jean Thomas, Mike Ploog, Werner Roth, Ross Andru, Tom Sutton, Gil Kane, Gene Colan & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-30290-839-3

Inspiration isn’t everything. In 1970, as Marvel consolidated its position of market dominance – even after losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so with a wave of new young talent but less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was the mass creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in superhero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story and a different review) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the print mix and shared universe mix as readily as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire – before chancing something new in a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist.

Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by western masked hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider) although the series title, if not the actual star character, was cribbed from a classic pre-Comics Code short suspense-thriller from Marvel Tales #116, July 1953.

Marvel always favoured a long-time tradition of using old (presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got nominal starts as throwaways in some anthology or other…

This copious compendium collects – in paperback or eBook formats – the early adventures of a young West Coast lycanthrope and comprises the contents of Marvel Spotlight #2-4, Werewolf by Night volume 1 #1-15; a guest-shot in Marvel Team-Up #12 and material from the appropriate half of a horror crossover with Tomb of Dracula #18, cumulatively spanning February 1972 through 1974.

Following an informative, scene-setting Introduction by long-term Marvel Editor Ralph Macchio, the moonlit madness begins with the landmark first appearance, introducing teenager Jack Russell, who is suffering some sleepless nights…

‘Werewolf by Night!’ (Marvel Spotlight #2, February 1972), was written by Gerry Conway and moodily illustrated by Mike Ploog from an outline by Roy & Jeanie Thomas, describing the worst day of Jack’s life – his 18th birthday – which begins with nightmares and ends in something far worse.

Jack’s mother and little sister Lissa are everything a fatherless boy could hope for but new stepfather Philip and creepy chauffeur Grant are another matter…

That night at his party Jack has a painful seizure and flees into the Malibu night to transform for the first time into a ravening vulpine man-beast. The next morning, he awakes wasted on the beach to discover that his mother has been gravely injured in a car crash. Something had happened to her brakes…

Creeping into her hospital room he is astonished as she relates the story of his blood-father; an Eastern European noble who loved her deeply but locked himself away three nights every month…

The Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reach eighteen years of age. Jack was horrified and then realised how soon his sister would reach her own majority…

With her dying breath Laura Russell made her son promise never to harm his stepfather, no matter what…

Scenario set, with the traumatised wolf-boy transforming for three nights every month, the weird, wild wonderment began in earnest with the beast attacking Grant the chauffeur – who had doctored those car-brakes – but refraining, even in vulpine form, from attacking Philip Russell…

The second instalment sees the reluctant nocturnal predator rescue Lissa from a sick and rowdy biker gang (they were everywhere back then) and narrowly escape the police only to be abducted by a sinister dowager seeking knowledge of a magical tome called the Darkhold. The eldritch spell-book is the apparent basis of the Russoff curse, but when Jack can’t produce the goods he’s left to the mercies of ‘The Thing in the Cellar!’…

Surviving more by luck than power, Jack’s third try-out issue fetches him up on an ‘Island of the Damned!’: introducing aging writer Buck Cowan, who became Jack’s best friend as they jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s stepfather.

The elder Russell had apparently sold off Jack’s inheritance, leaving the boy nothing but an old book. Following a paper trail to find proof Philip had had Laura Russell killed leads the pair to an offshore fortress, a dungeon full of horrors and a ruthless mutant seductress…

That episode ended on a cliffhanger, presumably as added incentive to buy Werewolf by Night #1 (September 1972), wherein Frank Chiaramonte took over inking with ‘Eye of the Beholder!’

As ruthless freak Marlene Blackgar and her monstrous posse capture the entire Russell family looking for the Book of Sins, once more a fearsome force of supernature awakes to accidentally save the day as night falls…

With ‘The Hunter… and the Hunted!’ Jack and Buck deposit the trouble-attracting grimoire with Father Joquez, a Christian monk and scholar of ancient texts, but are still hunted because of it. Jack quits the rural wastes of Malibu for a new home in Los Angeles, trading concrete for forests but life is no easier.

In #2, dying scientist Cephalos tries to harness Jack’s feral life-force to extend his own and lives but briefly to regret it. Meanwhile Joquez succeeds in translating the Darkhold, but his accomplishment allows an ancient horror to possess him in WbN #3 during ‘The Mystery of the Mad Monk!‘ Whilst the werewolf is saddened to end such a noble life it feels far happier dealing with millionaire sportsman Joshua Kane, who desires a truly unique head mounted on the wall of his den in the Franke Bolle inked ‘The Danger Game’.

Half-naked, exhausted and soaked to his now hairless skin, Jack must next deal with Kane’s psychotic brother who wants the werewolf for his pet assassin in ‘A Life for a Death!’ (by Len Wein & Ploog) after which ‘Carnival of Fear!’ (Bolle inks again) finds the beast – and Jack, once the sun rises – a pitiful captive of the mystic Swami Calliope and his deadly circus of freaks.

The wolf was now the subject of an obsessive police detective too. “Old-school cop” Lou Hackett is an old buddy of trophy-hunter Joshua Kane and every bit as charming, but his off-the-books investigation has hardly begun when the Swami’s plans fall apart in the concluding ‘Ritual of Blood!’ (inked by Jim Mooney).

The beast is safely(?) roaming loose in the backwoods for #8’s quirky monster-mash just as an ancient demon possesses a cute little bunny in ‘The Lurker Behind the Door!‘ (Wein, Werner Roth & Paul Reinman), before neatly segueing to a slight but stirring engagement in Marvel Team-Up #12 wherein Wein, Conway, Ross Andru & Don Perlin expose a ‘Wolf at Bay!’

When webspinning wallcrawler meets the Werewolf they initially battle each other – and ultimately malevolent mage Moondark – in foggy, fearful San Francisco before Jack heads back to LA and ‘Terror Beneath the Earth!’

Here Conway, Tom Sutton & George Roussos delve into an impeding and thoroughly nefarious scheme by business cartel the Committee. These out-of-the-box commercial gurus somehow possess a full dossier on Jack Russell’s night-life and hire a maniac, sewer-dwelling sound engineer to execute their radical plan to use monsters and derelicts to boost sales in a down-turned economy.

However, the bold sales scheme to frighten folk into spending more is ended before it begins since the werewolf proves to be far from a team-player in the wrap up ‘The Sinister Secret of Sarnak!’

Werewolf by Night #11 revelled in the irony as Marv Wolfman signed on as writer for ‘Comes the Hangman’ – illustrated by the incredible Gil Kane & Sutton – in which we learn something interesting about Philip Russell and the Committee, whilst Jack’s attention is distracted by a new apartment, a very odd neighbour and a serial kidnapper abducting young women to keep them safe from “corruption.”

When the self-deluded hooded hero snatches Lissa, he soon finds himself hunted by a monster beyond his wildest dreams…

Concluding chapter ‘Cry Werewolf!’ brings in the criminally underappreciated Don Perlin as inker. In a few short months he would become the strip’s penciller for the rest of the run, but before that Ploog & Chiaramonte returned for another session, introducing a manic mystic and a new love-interest (not the same person) in #13’s ‘His Name is Taboo’.

An aged sorcerer coveting the werewolf’s energies for his own arcane purposes, the magician is stunned when his adopted daughter Topaz finds her loyalties divided and her psionic abilities more help than hindrance to the ravening moon-beast.

‘Lo, the Monster Strikes!’ pits the wolf against Taboo’s undead – but getting better – son and sees revelation and reconciliation between Philip and Jack Russell. As a result, the young man and new girlfriend Topaz set off for Transylvania, the ancestral Russoff estate and a crossover confrontation with the Lord of Vampires.

Tomb of Dracula #18 (March 1974) begins the clash in ‘Enter: Werewolf by Night’ (Wolfman, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer) as Jack and Topaz investigate a potential cure for lycanthropy, only to be attacked by Dracula. Driven off by the girl’s psychic powers the Count realises the threat she poses to him and determined to slay her…

It concludes with Werewolf by Night #15 and the ‘Death of a Monster!’ (Wolfman, Ploog & Chiaramonte) as the battle of beasts resolves into a messy stalemate, but only after Jack learns of his family’s long connection to Dracula…

Supplemented with an unused Ploog cover for Marvel Spotlight#4, Gil Kane’s pre-corrections cover to ToD #18 and previous collection covers by Ploog & Dan Kemp, this first volume also includes a wealth of original art pages (20 in total) by Ploog, Sutton and Andru. A moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action, this compilation covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. If you must have a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers and moody young misses, this is a far more entertaining mix than many modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2017 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Essential Werewolf By Night volume 2


By Doug Moench & Don Perlin with Bill Mantlo, Virgil Redondo, Yong Montaño, Frank Robbins & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2725-3

As Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in 1970, in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators – Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was an en bloc wave of horror titles rapidly devised in response to an industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales. The move was handily expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (plus narcotics and bent coppers – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always the watch-word was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible.

When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary superstars – beginning with a werewolf and traditional vampire – before chancing something new via a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist.

Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by masked western hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider) although the title, if not the character, was actually cribbed from a classic short thriller from pre-Code horror anthology Marvel Tales #116 (July 1953).

Marvel had a long-time tradition of using old (and presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got notional starts as throwaways before being re-imagined as major characters…

This copious compendium compiles and completes in moody monochrome the remaining adventures of a good-hearted young West Coast lycanthrope who briefly shone as an unlikely star for the entire length of a trading trend, gathering between two soft covers Werewolf By Night volume 1 #22-45, Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #2-5, and a strange team tryout from Marvel Premiere #28 collectively spanning October 1974 to March 1977.

Jack Russell is a teenager with a thankfully rare but very disturbing condition. On her deathbed his mother revealed unsuspected Transylvanian origins to the kid: and explained a family curse which would turn him into a raging beast on every night with a full moon… as soon as he reached his 18th birthday.

After many months of misunderstanding as Jack tried to cope alone with his periodic wild side, Jack’s stepfather Philip Russell expanded the story, revealing how the Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthopy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached eighteen.

Moreover the feral blight would do the same to his little sister Lissa when she reached her own majority…

As the lad tried and repeatedly failed to balance a normal life with his monthly cycle of uncontrollable ferocity he met his mentor and confidante Buck Cowan, an aging writer who had became Jack’s best friend when the pair began to jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s history. Their incessant search for a cure was made more urgent by little Lissa’s ever-encroaching 18th birthday.

In the course of their researches they had crossed swords with many monsters – human and otherwise – including off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his hunt for a werewolf nobody believed in, and fellow lycanthrope Raymond Coker who had found a shocking remedy. For one werewolf to lift his curse he/she had to kill another one…

Written entirely by Doug Moench and pencilled for most of the run by the criminally underrated Don Perlin, the midnight mysteries resume here with the Vince Colletta inked Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #2 where ‘The Frankenstein Monster meets Werewolf by Night’.

Roaming the streets of New York in ‘Prisoners of Flesh!’, the massive mute monster hops a freight train west after overhearing of a mystic named Danton Valya who can transplant souls into new bodies…

He arrives in Los Angeles just as Jack Russell discovers his sister has been abducted by Valya’s Satanist cult ‘To Host the Beast’ and cataclysmically clashes with the monster who has only to let the diabolists sacrifice the werewolf and Lissa to gain his heart’s desire.

Tragically the noble artificial man has more compassion than the cultists and prefers his own sorry existence to benefiting from ‘The Flesh of Satan’s Hate!’…

Werewolf By Night #22 (Moench, Perlin & Colletta) introduced a crazed murderer dubbed Atlas who stalks and slays many of Buck’s movie friends. However when Russell’s hairy Other encounters the ‘Face of the Fiend!’, Atlas beats the beast unconscious and in the morning light Jack is arrested for the latest murder…

Lieutenant Vic Northrup was a good friend of the deceased Hackett and knows Russell is hiding something, but eventually has to release him for lack of evidence. Picking Jack up from the station Buck reveals he has gleaned the inside story of Atlas and his own historical involvement in the story, only to become the next victim…

However, the werewolf is on hand when he strikes and the battle explodes into LA’s streets where disbelieving cops had to admit that ‘The Murderer is a Maniac!’

In #24 Buck introduces Jack to fringe scientist Winston Redditch who claims to have chemically isolated the constituents of the human psyche and thus might be able to suppress Jack’s periodic bestial outbursts. Sadly the boffin accidentally tries the serum himself first and unleashes ‘The Dark Side of Evil!’

The remorseless thug he becomes calls himself DePrayve and fights the werewolf to a standstill, giving Northrup an opportunity to capture the hirsute “urban legend” which has stalked the city and drove Hackett crazy…

From WBN #25 the art took a quantum leap in quality as Perlin – already co-plotting the stories – began inking his own art. When the beast busts out of custody ‘An Eclipse of Evil’ finds Redditch turning his warped attention to the lycanthrope as a potential guinea pig for further experimentation, only for both the feral fury and dastardly DePrayve to be targeted by deranged vigilante and “protector of purity” The Hangman…

The horrific three-way clash resulted in ‘A Crusade of Murder’ with Redditch hospitalised, the vicious vigilante in custody and battered, bloody but unbowed Jack still free and cursed…

Eschewing chronological order for the sake of unbroken continuity-clarity, January’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #3 pops up here and reveals a ‘Castle Curse!’ (inked by Sal Trapani) which sees Jack return to Transylvania after receiving a monster-infested vision of former love interest – and psionic powerhouse – Topaz in ‘Spawned in Dream… Slain in Nightmare!’

Jack drags Buck and Lissa ‘Home to Slay!’ in the Balkans, finding the old family home under siege by pitchfork-wielding villagers who have all their worst fears confirmed when he goes hairy and gets hungry, before finally tracking down Topaz in the care – and custody – of a gypsy matriarch with an agenda of her own.

The blood-crazed old witch has a tragic connection to the Russoff line and was exploiting Topaz’s restored powers to enact a grisly ‘Vengeance in Death!’ upon the villagers by raising an army of zombies. The chain of events she set in motion could only end in death…

Werewolf By Night #27 (March 1975) began a chilling and fantastic extended saga with the introduction of ‘The Amazing Doctor Glitternight’. Back in the USA Jack’s feral alter ego runs loose on the isolated Californian coast and is drawn to a cave where a bizarre wizard is making monsters from what appears to be fragments of Topaz’s soul…

The eerie mage is hunting for Topaz’s dead stepfather Taboo and will not be gainsaid, even after Jack’s uncontrollable were-beast slaughters his eldritch masterpiece…

The mage intensifies his campaign in ‘The Darkness from Glitternight’ heaping horrors upon Jack and friends before capturing Lissa on her birthday and using dark magic to turn her from simple werewolf into ‘A Sister of Hell’…

The ghostly reappearance of Taboo proves a turning point as wolf battles hellbeast and everybody clashes with Glitternight before a ‘Red Slash Across Midnight’ seemingly results in a cure for one of the tortured Russell clan…

April’s Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #4 offers a long-delayed clash with living vampire Morbius beginning with ‘A Meeting of Blood’ (Moench & Virgil Redondo) as the former biologist tracks his old girlfriend Martine and discovers a cure for his own exsanguinary condition.

Unfortunately the chase brings him into savage and inconclusive combat with a certain hairy hellion and the solution is lost…

Also in that double-sized issue was Moench & Yong Montaño’s ‘When the Moon Dripped Blood!’ wherein Jack and Buck stumble across a group of rural loons all too successfully summoning a ghastly elder god. Although great at consuming and converting human offerings and acolytes, the appalling atrocity is seemingly no match for a ravening ball of furious fangs and claws…

Werewolf By Night #31 (July 1975) was a turning point as ‘Death in White’ (Moench & Perlin) has Jack plumb depths of utter despair after a skiing weekend turns into a nightmare when the werewolf stalks a little girl and Buck nearly dies trying to save her.

With the same cover-date and catching up at last, Giant-Size Werewolf By Night #5 shifted into full-on fantasy mode. Illustrated by Montaño, ‘Prologue: I Werewolf’ recaps Jack’s peculiar problems before ‘The Plunder of Paingloss’ discloses how the leaders of dimensional realm Biphasia – permanently polarised between night and day – instigate a ‘Bad Deal with the Devil’s Disciple’ on Earth when demonist Joaquin Zairre kidnaps the werewolf…

Dispatching the beast though a ‘Doorway of the Dark Waters’, Jack is soon a pawn in a sorcerous war where ‘Fragile Magic’ on the world of light and darkness allows him and his allies to raid the ‘The Ark of Onom-Kra’ and expose a secret tyrant in ‘Silver Rain, Sardanus and Shadow’…

Returned to the real world Werewolf By Night #32 (August 1975) introduces mercenary Marc Spector who is hired by criminal capitalists, equipped with a silver-armoured costume and weapons and tasked with capturing Russell or his animal other as ‘…The Stalker Called Moon Knight’ (Moench & Don Perlin with the assistance of Howie Perlin).

The bombastic battle and its ferocious sequel ‘Wolf-Beast vs. Moon Knight’ received an unprecedented response and quickly promoted the lunar avenger to prominence as Marvel’s edgy answer to the Batman: especially after the mercurial merc rejected his employers entreaties and let the wolf, as well as hostages Lissa and Topaz, run free…

Next up is a uniquely odd attempt to create a team of terrors. Marvel Premiere #28 (February 1976) introduced The Legion of Monsters in ‘There’s a Mountain on Sunset Boulevard!’ by Bill Mantlo, Frank Robbins & Steve Gan.

When an ancient alien manifested a rocky peak in LA, the werewolf, Man-Thing, Morbius and Ghost Rider were drawn into a bizarre confrontation which might have resulted in the answer to all their wishes and hopes, but instead only lead to death and disappointment…

Werewolf By Night #34 (October 1975, Moench & Perlin) began another eerie suspense thriller as Jack, Lissa, Topaz and Buck’s girlfriend Elaine Marston braved a haunted house in search of cure for Cowan’s werewolf-caused coma.

Elaine had lost her first husband to the doomed domicile and it took a lot to bring her back. That triggering event is the dying Buck muttering the name of deceased spiritualist Belaric Marcosa who apparently still roamed the hell-house where ‘Not All the Shades of Death nor Evil’s Majesty’ could rein in his sadistic games…

Braving the unknown the terrified quartet fetched up to the mansion and were soon enduring ‘Evil in Every Stone, No Longer Hiding’; becoming enmired in a war between ‘Marcosa in Death’ and the spirits of the many victims he had tortured and destroyed.

Their horrific psychological ordeal eventually results in victory for Jack and his companions as ‘The End’ produces a miraculous recovery in the dying Buck and the cessation of Marcosa’s phantom depredations…

WBN #38 took a sharp change of direction as Jack exiled himself to the wilderness only to stumble on a desperate fugitive fighting to save his baby from a murderous gangster who had taken up with his former wife. In the midst of such mundane matters Jack is visited by a trinity of infinite beings who threaten to alter his existence forever and ominously warn that ‘Rebirth Also Kills’…

The celestial visitants are also in touch with former werewolf Raymond Coker as he squats in a hut in distant Haiti and even appear to Lissa and Topaz as they tend the still recuperating Buck.

The “Three Who Are All” are subtly ensuring all the players are in place for a game of cosmic consequences and in #39 when Jack races back to his friend he finds Coker and mystic troubleshooter Brother Voodoo waiting. No sooner are introductions made than an army of zuvembies attack and Russell learns that ‘Some are Born to the Night’…

Portentous proclamations of unfulfilled destinies propel the adventurers and Topaz back to Haiti where obsessed Vic Northrup is still looking for answers to Lou Hackett’s death. Ahead of them all is an infernal pit nurturing a shocking travesty of life with the resurrected Glitternight in charge of all the ‘Souls in Darkness’…

Revealed in WBN #41 as a former member of the gestalt which was once “Five Who Are All”, Glitternight’s fascination with monster-making is at last explained as the arcane abomination’s attempts to dominate reality are spectacularly thwarted through the return of the missing fourth celestial as well as the indomitable resistance of Brother Voodoo and Jack in ‘…And Death Shall be the Change’.

Key to their eventual triumph is the moment when Russell discovers how to become a werewolf in full control of his mental faculties; at will, day or night…

Returning to America, the Werewolf-by-Choice naturally decides to become a superhero and moves to New York in time to stumble onto a plot by the Masked Marauder. Also on scene is a certain Armoured Avenger and, after the usual misunderstandings, Jack is shaggy knees-deep in trouble with ‘The Marauder and the Man of Iron’…

The tale, the series and this essential edition all conclude with Werewolf By Night #43 as ensorcelled fang-&-claw unite with high-tech wizardry to destroy an awesome animalistic automaton and end the ‘Terrible Threat of the Tri-Animan’…

Despite the rather lame and ill-considered attempt to reinvent the series at the last, this moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action covers some of the most under-appreciated magic moments and terror tales in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling.

If you must have a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers, aliens, masked mystery men and moody young misses – this is a far more entertaining mix than most modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire


By Jason Aaron & Roland Boschi (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4235-5

In the early 1970’s, following a downturn in superhero comics sales, Marvel shifted focus from straight costumed crusaders to supernatural and horror characters with one of the most adaptable and enduring proving to be a certain flaming-skulled vigilante dubbed the Ghost Rider.

Carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze had sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan, or arch-liar Mephisto as he actually was, followed the letter, but not spirit, of the contract and Crash Simpson died anyway.

When the Demon Lord came for Blaze only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation. Temporarily thwarted, the devil afflicted Johnny was with a condition which made his body burn with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and become the unwilling, unknowing host for outcast and exiled demon Zarathos – the Spirit of Vengeance.

After years of travail and turmoil Blaze was (temporarily) freed of the demon’s curse and seemingly retired from the hero’s life. As Blaze briefly escaped his pre-destined doom, a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison by a route most circuitous and tragic…

Over the years a grim truth emerged: Johnny and Danny were actually half-brothers and both the Higher Realms and Infernal Regions had big plans for them. Moreover the power of the Ghost Rider had always been a weapon of Heaven not a curse from Hell…

This riotous, rollercoaster grindhouse supernatural thriller collects the 6-issue miniseries Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire (from August 2009 to February 2010) by Jason Aaron & Roland Boschi, featuring a horde of fan-favourite villains, a variety of previous fire-headed hosts, a gaggle of grim guest-stars and assorted Spirits of Vengeance in a bombastic, Hell-for-Leathers romp which concluded a long-running saga.

It all began when usurper Archangel Zadkiel – thanks to his unwitting dupe Danny Ketch – finally achieved his appalling ambition: ousting God to become the new Supreme Power of the universe. The sinister Seraph hadn’t reckoned on a motley crew of sinners and worse, led by Blaze, who were utterly resolved to stop Him…

With covers and variants by Jae Lee, Phil Jimenez, Das Pastoras, Dustin Weaver, Greg Land and Christian Nauck, the dark drama begins when Zadkiel’s angels raid a satanic fertility lab and slaughter all the infants and children. The victims were all prospective Antichrists, but one escaped…

When Hellstorm – a fully grown, naturally conceived Son of Satan – arrives, he finds himself in a peculiar position. Having spent his entire rebellious life battling his sire, Daimon Hellstrom and has no desire to aid the Evil One’s schemes, but by his murderous acts Zadkiel is actually trying to unmake Biblical Prophecy.

God always intended for an Apocalypse to finish His Divine Plan, and the usurper’s coup is actually beyond all concept of right and wrong. Thus the die is cast and Hellstorm must, albeit reluctantly, find the last Earthborn heir of Hell and ‘Save the Antichrist, Save the World’…

Simultaneously, Blaze, accompanied by mystic Caretaker/combat nun Sister Sara, is tracking Zadkiel’s angelic agents, determined to find a door to Heaven and confront the renegade face to face. They also want to kill Johnny’s brother Danny, whose pig-headed hubris has led to Zadkiel replacing God and occupying the Vault of Heaven…

When the bikers wipe out a brace of boastful rearguard cherubim and learn of The Plan, they immediately change tack, joining the hunt for missing Anton Satan (AKA Kid Blackheart) to save him from the wrath of the Pretender God…

Oblivious to the threat Anton is exactly where you’d expect an Antichrist to be: making millions as the youngest executive at a Wall Street Hedge Fund. His cruel, calm arrogance is soon shaken, however, when a Seraphic Assassin bursts in only to be promptly eradicated by occult terrorist Jaine Cutter and her “Breathing Gun”: another player determined to restore the Biblically-scheduled Armageddon.

She, however, has severely underestimated Zadkiel’s determination and sense of proportion and drags the protesting Hell-brat straight into an angelic ambush. And far across the country someone is gathering a small army of Ghost Rider villains. They already have Orb, Blackout and The Deacon on board…

With tormenting demons replacing his lost arms, Master Pandemonium is a living doorway to Hell, but even he had no idea what true suffering was until Danny Ketch kicked his door in, looking for a quick introduction and shortest route to the Big Bad Boss of Gehenna…

Now, three days later in New York, Hellstorm explosively saves Cutter and Anton from the ruthless Flight of Angels, but when the self-serving kid bolts he runs right into the newly returned Ketch.

Blaze and Sister Sara arrive moments later and all parties very reluctantly agree to suspend hostilities for a team-up in ‘Are You There, Devil? It’s Me, Danny.’

The anti-Ghost Rider Squad is growing too. Freshly signed up are Zadkiel’s own flame-headed fanatic Kowalski AKA Vengeance, plus Scarecrow, Madcap, motorised maniac Big Wheel and a savagely sentient steam-shovel called Trull…

Thanks to Pandemonium, Ketch has met the Devil and made a deal. In return for preserving the last extant Antichrist from Zadkiel’s forces, Satan will provide the brothers with access to Heaven and give them their shot at restoring the previously incumbent Deity…

After brutally working out their operational differences in time-honoured fashion, Johnny and Danny at last unite just as ‘The Brothers Ghost Rider’ are bushwhacked by Big Wheel and Trull (an alien mind-force which could possess any mechanical contrivance: tractor, bulldozer, chainsaw…)

The catastrophic clash brings the boys to a temple which is a gateway to the Eternal Realm, but thanks to Blackout they miss their chance to use it…

Meanwhile in a hidden location the secret sacred order of Gun Nuns prepare for their last battle…

‘Here Comes Hell’ starts in the Jasper County Sheriff’s holding cell where Scarecrow and Madcap have just slaughtered all the other occupants. Outside, Hellstorm, Sara, Jaine and obnoxious Anton have entered the quiet town, seeking safety and a useable satanic sanctuary to stash the kid in.

Zadkiel’s converts are waiting for them and a deadly duel ensues. In the melee Anton shows his true colours by attacking Sara and allying with Master Pandemonium even as Vengeance and the Orb lead an army of killer angels, demons and zombie bikers against the primed-for-martyrdom Gun Nuns protecting a fully operational highway to Heaven…

‘Sole Reigning Holds the Tyranny of Heaven’ finds the triumphant, power-drunk Zadkiel remodelling Paradise to his own gory tastes and fitfully rewriting snippets of Creation when the Ghost Riders storm in through the nun’s gate…

Meanwhile on Earth equally blockbusting battles break out as Hellstorm and Cutter at last suspend their truce and renew their personal vendetta. Elsewhere Kid Blackheart brutally uncovers Sister Sara’s impossible hidden destiny as a living portal to Heaven, and utilises her to transport battalions of demons to conquer Kingdom Come…

The occult overdrive thus rockets to a cataclysmic conclusion as Zadkiel personally smashes the invading Spirits of Vengeance in ‘If You Can’t Lower Heaven, Raise Hell’. With the streets of Heaven knee-deep in blood, even a pep talk from his own dead wife and kids cannot keep Blaze battling against the new Omniscience, but when the Legions of Hell attack and Danny incites all the previously expired Ghost Riders to rise, Johnny sees one last chance to make things right…

Fast, frantic, irreverent, satirically funny, violently gratuitous and clearly not afraid to be daft when necessary, this is a fabulously barmy, two-fisted eldritch escapade in the manner of TV’s Supernatural or Angel that will reward any fans of raucous road thrillers, magical monstrosity tours and the minutiae of Marvel’s horror continuity.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ghost Rider – Danny Ketch Classic volume 1


By Howard Mackie, Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira with Jimmy Palmiotti (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3735-1

In the early 1970’s, following a downturn in superhero comics sales Marvel shifted focus from straight costumed crusaders to supernatural and horror characters and one of the most enduring was a certain flaming-skulled vigilante dubbed the Ghost Rider.

Carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze had sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan, or arch-liar Mephisto as he actually was, followed the letter, but not spirit, of the contract and Crash Simpson died anyway.

When the Demon Lord came for Blaze only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation. Temporarily thwarted, Johnny was afflicted with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and became the unwilling host for outcast and exiled demon Zarathos – the Spirit of Vengeance.

After years of travail and turmoil Blaze was liberated from the demon’s curse and seemingly retired from the hero’s life.

As Blaze briefly escaped his pre-destined doom, a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison by a route most circuitous and tragic…

From that dubious period of fashionably “Grim ‘n’ Gritty” super-heroics in the early 1990s comes this slight but engagingly fast-paced horror-hero re-imagining courtesy of writer Howard Mackie and artists Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira, which quickly secured the new Ghost Rider status as one of the hottest hits of the period.

This first Danny Ketch Classic volume reprints issues #1-10 of the revitalised series spanning May 1990 – February 1991, and opens, following a reminiscence from the author, with the bonanza-sized introductory tale ‘Life’s Blood’ which sees young Danny and his photographer sister Barbara looking for Houdini’s tomb in the vast Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn on the eve of Halloween.

Unfortunately they stumble into a bloody criminal confrontation between ninjas and gangsters over a mysterious briefcase. Discovered, the siblings flee but Barb is hit by an arrow, whilst the case itself is snatched by a juvenile gang who plague the wooded necropolis.

The ninjas and their macabre leader Deathwatch are the victors of the fire-fight and are soon hunting for their hard-won prize and the witnesses…

In an adjacent junkyard Danny is helplessly watching Barb bleed out when his attention is caught by a glowing pair of eyes. Closer inspection reveals them to be an arcane design on the gas-cap of an abandoned motorbike. The ninjas, having caught the girl who stole the briefcase, are closing in on the Ketch kids when Danny, his hands soaked in his sister’s blood, touches the glowing bike symbol and is inexplicably transformed into a spectral horror, burning with fury and indignation – a Spirit of Vengeance hungry to assuage the pain of innocent blood spilled with inhuman vitality, toting an infinitely adaptable bike chain and a mystic “Penance Stare” which subjected the guilty to unimaginable psychic pain and guilt…

The Blazing Biker makes short work of the ninjas, but when the police arrive and find him standing over the dying Barbara, they naturally jump to the wrong conclusion…

As the Ghost Rider flees on a bike with wheels of fire, causing spectacular amounts of collateral carnage, Barb is rushed to hospital, where a re-transfigured, bruised, bleeding and totally confused Danny finds her the next morning…

In the richest part of Manhattan, Wall Street shark and psionic monster Deathwatch makes a ghastly example of the man who lost his briefcase twice even as his rival for its possession, criminal overlord Wilson Fisk, similarly chastises his own minions for failure.

The contents of the case are not only hotly disputed but utterly lethal and both factions will tear Brooklyn apart to get them…

Meanwhile the teen thieves known as the Cyprus Pool Jokers find three canisters in that purloined case and hide them all over the vast cemetery, unaware that both Deathwatch’s ninjas and the Kingpin’s hoods are hunting for them. At Barbara’s bedside Danny is plagued by guilt and anger. Unable to help his comatose sister the lad determines to investigate what happened to him. When he awoke the blazing bike had returned to a normal configuration and now Danny climbs aboard and heads back to Cyprus Hills to look for answers just as the competing packs of killers are turning the streets into a free-fire zone.

Riding straight into the bloodbath, Danny sees his bike gas-cap glowing again and, almost against his will, slams his palm onto it, unleashing his skeletal passenger once again…

Devastating the assembled mobsters and murderers, the Ghost Rider then takes wounded Cyprus Pool Jokers Ralphie and Paulie to hospital and another pointless confrontation with the authorities…

‘Do Be Afraid of the Dark!’ finds open war between Deathwatch and the Kingpin’s forces for the canisters neither side possesses, with the Ghost Rider roaming the night tackling the increasingly savage hunters on both sides. The girl Paulie has admitted that she has no idea where two of the containers could be, since the Jokers split up to hide them and she’s now the last of them…

The urban horror escalates when Deathwatch’s metahuman enforcer Blackout joins the hunt: a sadistic man-made vampire with the ability to manipulate fields of complete darkness. This psychotic mass-murderer targets entire families and starts his search by “questioning” the cops who attended the initial battle in the graveyard…

Danny is on the verge of a breakdown, snapping viciously at his mother and girlfriend Stacy and utterly unable to share the horror that his life has become. Between days at Barb’s bedside, and nights as the slave to a primal force obsessed with blood and punishment, Ketch is drowning…

When Blackout tracks down the recovering Ralphie, the Ghost Rider is too late to save the young felon’s parents and only just manages to drive the vampire away before the boy too succumbs, leading to the inevitable final clash in ‘Deathwatch’, wherein the Wall Street dilettante’s forces find the canisters before being overwhelmed by the Kingpin. Ever pragmatic, the ninja-master simply surrenders, but the wildly unpredictable Blackout refuses to submit and slips into a berserker rage of slaughter, before escaping with the containers and terrified hostage Paulie.

The albino maniac knows the canisters contain a toxin that will wipe out New York and harbours an impossible plan to use them to kick-start an atomic war which will produce a nuclear winter on an Earth he would inevitably rule. However his delusional dreams are ended when the Ghost Rider appears and engages the vampire in blistering battle.

Incensed beyond endurance, Blackout savagely bites the blazing biker, but instead of blood sucks down raw, coruscating hellfire which leaves his face a melted, agonising ruin and burns the canisters to harmless slag…

Issue #4 found Danny, unable to resist the constant call to become the Furious Flaming Apparition, decide to lock up the cursed motorcycle beyond the reach of temptation in faraway Manhattan, only to find it had a mind of its own when a clash between a biker gang and an old Thor villain trapped both Ketch and an car full innocent bystanders in a subterranean parking garage. ‘You Can Run, but You Can’t Hyde!’ taught the troubled young man that the Rider was a cruel necessity in a bad world, an argument confirmed by the beginning of an extended subplot in which children began vanishing from the streets of Brooklyn…

The very epitome of Grim’n’Gritty stopped by for a two issue guest-shot in #5-6 as ‘Getting Paid!’ and ‘Do or Die!’ saw a mysterious figure distributing free guns to children, drawing the attention of not just the night-stalking Spirit of Vengeance but also the merciless, militaristic vigilante Frank Castle, known to criminals and cops alike as The Punisher.

The weapons are turning the city into a deadly battleground, but the cops and unscrupulous TV reporter Linda Wei seem more concerned with stopping the Ghost Rider’s campaign against the youthful killers than ending the bloodshed. Danny decides to investigate in his mortal form and quickly finds himself in over his head, but for some reason the magic medallion won’t transform him. He is completely unaware how close he was to becoming the Punisher’s latest statistic…

The situation changes that night and the flaming-skulled zealot clashes with the Punisher before uniting to tackle the true mastermind – a manic anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist terrorist known as Flag-Smasher.

With the insane demagogue determined to unleash a storm of death on Wall Street, the driven anti-heroes are forced to briefly unite to end the scheme and save the “bad” kids and the system that created them…

‘Obssesion’ in #7, illustrated solely by Texeira, saw the return of animal-trainer and contortionist the Scarecrow, who had barely troubled Iron Man, the X-Men and Captain America in his early days, but after having slipped into morbid thanophilia had become a death-preoccupied maniac who presented a truly different threat to the mystic agent of retribution.

A far greater menace was seen – or rather, not seen – with the return of Blackout who silently stalked Danny Ketch, savagely slaughtering everybody who knew him. Not even the police guards at Barbara’s hospital bedside could stop the fiend with half-a-face…

Through dreams Danny debated his cursed existence with the Spirit of Vengeance in #8’s ‘Living Nightmare’ (Mackie, Saltares & Texeira) constantly bemoaning his fate but seemingly unable to affect the implacable, terrifying being he couldn’t stop becoming. Adding to his fevered nights were visions of Deathwatch, Barbara and the vile psycho-killer Blackout.

As Blackout continued to murder anybody coming into contact with the troubled Ketch – who was seemingly paralysed by his dilemma – girlfriend Stacy neared the end of her training as a cop, and her father increased patrols to catch the blazing Biker. Impatient and scared, the Cypress Hills Community Action Group took controversial steps to safeguard their streets by hiring maverick private security company H.E.A.R.T. (Humans Engaging All Racial Terrorism – truly one of the naffest and most inappropriate acronyms in comics history) who promptly decided Ghost Rider was the cause of all the chaos and went after him with an arsenal of high-tech military hardware and a helicopter gunship…

The Spirit of Vengeance was already occupied, having found Blackout attacking a girl, but their final showdown was interrupted when the fiery skeleton was attacked by a colossal Morlock (feral mutants who live in tunnels beneath New York) who mistook the saviour for the assailant…

Issue #9 guest-starred the X-Factor – a reformed X-Men team comprising Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman and the Beast who uncover the mystery of the missing children in ‘Pursuit’ (with additional inks by Jimmy Palmiotti) when they follow the Ghost Rider and Morlocks under the city.

Tragically, Blackout too is on the Blazing Biker’s trail and finds in the concrete depths even more victims to torture Danny Ketch’s breaking heart and blistered soul before their climactic last clash…

This volume ends on a thematic cliffhanger with ‘Stars of Blood’ as Danny begins a new phase of life reconciled to his burden. When a series of horrific murders are attributed to a publicity-seeking serial killer named Zodiak, the boy begins investigating the deaths and discovers that the haunted gas-cap is again inactive, although it does transform him later when he stumbles over a couple of kids fighting…

Arcanely active again, the Ghost Rider then follows a convenient tip to the astrological assassin and discovers a far more prosaic reason for the string of slayings before an inclusive and unsatisfying battle with the insufferable, elusive Zodiak.

Meanwhile across town, the humiliated H.E.A.R.T. team accept a commission from Deathwatch to destroy the Spirit of Vengeance, whilst in the western USA the previous victim of the curse of Zarathos is riding his motorcycle hard, determined to get to New York and destroy the latest Ghost Rider as soon as possible…

To Be Continued…

This expanded re-issue of the 1991 Ghost Rider Resurrected trade paperback also includes the cover and introduction to that volume, pin-ups by Saltares, Texeira & Palmiotti and a full cover gallery and, despite being markedly short on plot and utterly devoid of humour, does deliver the maximum amount of uncomplicated thrills, spills and chills for action-starved fight fans.

If you occasionally feel that subtlety isn’t everything and yearn for a vicarious dose of simple wickedness-whomping, this might well be the book for you…
© 1990, 1991, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ghost Rider: Fear Itself


By Rob Williams, Matthew Clark, Brian Ching, Lee Garbett & various (Marvel/Panini UK)
ISBN: 978-1-84653-499-7

In recent times Marvel has eschewed colossal braided mega-crossover events in favour of smaller, themed mini-epics but following the release of the Captain America and Thor films – not to mention the upcoming Avengers celluloid blockbuster – the time obviously seemed right to once more plunge their entire Universe into cataclysmic chaos and rebirth.

This collection gathers the prologue an 5-issue miniseries which reintroduced the Ghost Rider to contemporary continuity and can even be read without reference to the Fear Itself core volume and subsequent spin-off books (stemming from the 30-odd regular titles, miniseries and specials the saga expanded into).

In the main storyline an antediluvian Asgardian menace resurfaces and by possessing a selection of Earth’s heroes and villains sets in motion a terrifying bloodbath of carnage to feed on the fear of mankind and topple the established Norse pantheon. With that much spiritual energy unleashed its no surprise that other supernatural entities begin to feel threatened…

Years ago carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan – or arch-liar Mephisto, as he actually was – followed the letter, but not spirit of the contract. Crash Simpson died anyway and when the Dark Lord came for Johnny only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation.

Temporarily thwarted Johnny was afflicted with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and became the unwilling host for outcast demon Zarathos – the spirit of vengeance.

In later years Blaze briefly escaped his doom and a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison.

Now in a classy fright-fest by Rob Williams (Cla$$war, 2000AD‘s Low Life) and artists Matthew Clark, Brian Ching, Lee Garbett & Sean Parsons, with additional art from Valerio Schiti, the Angel from Hell possesses a new host and is unleashed again to punish the guilty, beginning in the Prologue issue ‘Give Up the Ghost’ wherein the emotionally shattered but still valiantly heroic Blaze – once again bonded to the flaming phantom – is tricked by the mysterious adept Adam into surrendering the curse to a more than willing new vessel…

As the fear-mongering “Worthy” decimate the planet and humanity’s psyche, a female Ghost Rider roars through the ruins on her flaming bike saving the innocent and destroying the things which prey on mortals, but finds her match in the transformed Asgardian herald Skadi…

Meanwhile the liberated Blaze is confronted by his lifelong tormentor Mephisto who reveals that he is not the only Great Big Liar in creation: Adam, who claims to be the First Man, has a plan for the new Ghost Rider which will alter mankind forever…

Adam wants to eradicate all sin on Earth using the gullible, girlish novitiate acolyte Alejandra as his weapon but that is actually an even worse proposition and fate than anything any devil could devise…

Driven by conscience, Blaze makes another Devil’s Bargain to save humanity whilst the sheltered child who now contains the Ghost Rider begins to carry out Adam’s plan with staggering success.

Raiding Adam’s hidden temple. Blaze joins forces with British Zombie wizard Seeker – who knows far more than he’s letting on – just as Adam’s devoted disciple begins to find her own mind and path…

With the planet sliding swiftly into physical cataclysm and psychic Armageddon can the disparate forces of Free Will unite in time to save us all from salvation…?

The book ends on a superbly powerful human note as the mortal who eventually retains the power of Zarathos goes on a mission of old-fashioned vengeance only to be confronted with the most appalling of father figures…

Cool, action-packed, mightily moving and wryly witty, this is a splendid reinvention of a character who has been in equal amounts both the best and worst of Marvel’s mighty pantheon and one well worth a little of your time and money.

Ghost Rider: Fear Itself is scheduled for British release on January 12th 2012.

™ & © 2012 Marvel & Subs. Licensed by Marvel Characters B.V. through Panini S.p.A. Italy. A British Edition by Panini UK Ltd.